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Results for ecosystem:

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ecosystem

CATEGORY: flora; fauna
DEFINITION: The complex of living organisms, their physical environment, and all their interrelationships in a particular unit of space; the total living community of a single environment -- the flora, fauna, insects, and man himself -- and the interactions of the constituent parts as well as their relationship with the non-living environment. The flow of energy through an ecosystem leads to a clearly defined structure, biotic diversity, and system of exchange cycles between the living and nonliving parts of the ecosystem.

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Atlantic period

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Atlantic phase, Atlantic climatic period
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: In Europe, a climatic optimum following the last Ice Age. This period was represented as a maximum of temperature and evidence from beetles suggests it being warmer than average for the interglacial. It seems to have begun about 6000 BC, when the average temperature rose. Melting ice sheets ultimately submerged nearly half of western Europe, creating the bays and inlets along the Atlantic coast that provided a new, rich ecosystem for human subsistence. The Atlantic period was followed by the subboreal period. The Atlantic period, which succeeded the Boreal, was probably wetter and certainly somewhat warmer, and mixed forests of oak, elm, common lime (linden), and elder spread northward. Only in the late Atlantic period did the beech and hornbeam spread into western and central Europe from the southeast.

bog

CATEGORY: geography
DEFINITION: A type of wetland ecosystem characterized by wet, spongy, poorly drained peaty soil. The term also describes the communities of plants growing on acid waterlogged ground, as opposed to fen. Three main types of bog exist: valley bogs that remain waterlogged due to the concentration of drainage into a valley; raised bogs that form as large pillows of peat and are kept waterlogged by high rainfall; and blanket bogs that form through the growth of the organic horizons of gleyed podzols.

food chain

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: food web
CATEGORY: flora; fauna
DEFINITION: The set of relationships among plant and animal species in an ecosystem through which energy is channeled.

new archaeology

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: New Archaeology; processual archaeology
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: A movement which began in America in the 1960s, aimed at making archaeology more scientific, now more often called processual archaeology. It was suggested that explanations be based on carefully designed models of human behavior and emphasized the importance of understanding underlying cultural processes. This new approach was controversial and is commonly associated with Lewis R. Binford and his students. Binford's New Perspectives in Archaeology" in 1968 stressed the following ideas: the use of new techniques such as the computer for statistical and matrix analyses of data and concept of the ecosystem for the understanding of the economic and subsistence bases of prehistoric societies; an evolutionary view of culture; the use of models of cultures viewed as systems incorporating the evolutionary view of culture and a close relationship between archaeology and anthropology. Although the proponents of the new archaeology have been criticized by more traditionally minded scholars their basic principles are now widely accepted."

trophic levels

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: trophic level
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Levels within the food chain characterized by similar energy consumption. A trophic level is a step in a food chain of an ecosystem. The organisms of a chain are classified based on their feeding behavior: 1) the producers, green plants; 2) the herbivores, or plant eaters; 3) primary carnivores, or meat eaters, which eat the herbivores; and 4) secondary carnivores which eat the primary carnivores.

vegetational climax

CATEGORY: term; flora
DEFINITION: A model which tries to explain vegetational history -- usually as a series of phases culminating in a terminal phase of equilibrium. It is maintained that there are points in vegetational history beyond which there can be no progress until the environmental conditions change. The stages leading up to these climaxes (seres) represent the gradual replacement of one ecosystem with another until a stabilized point (equilibrium) is attained. In different areas these climaxes take different forms depending on climate. A change in the climax vegetation therefore means a change in environmental conditions.