Chloe Troulan

Data Based Questions Pages 185 – 191

Questions on Page 185

1. The “above ground” compartment in an ecosystem consists the plants that

absorb the nutrients from the roots and soil underneath the ground and then
above the ground they are produced and grow above ground to allow
consumers to eat them.
2. The biome that has the largest “above ground” compartment is the
equatorial forest.
3. It is difficult to grow crops in an area where equatorial forest has been
cleared of its vegetation because the nutrients that the crops feed off of are
stored in the vegetation above ground causing problems for the organisms to
find energy to survive.
4. The name of the process that is carried out by decomposers and detritus
feeders that release CO2 into the atmosphere is
5. Most of the nitrogen in a tundra ecosystem is in the soil because there is not
much vegetation which means there is a lot more soil which is rich in
nutrients.
6. Warming due to climate change might cause release of CO2 from tundra soil
because it makes it easier for the CO2 to travel through the soil to reach into
the atmosphere quicker.

Questions on Page 186

1. A) The effect of increasing the temperature of the soils on the rate of release
of carbon is that there is more carbon released when the soil is moist there is
a higher release of carbon and then when the soil is saturated with water the
release of carbon was the same as the initial amount being released.
B) The reasons for this effect are because the warmth in the moist soil allows
the carbon to be evaporated quicker and easier. This would then cause more
carbon to be released at one time compared to when it is saturated with
water.
2. A) The rates of release of carbon in moist soils with those in soils saturated
with water are quite different, when the soil is kept moist there is more
carbon released compared to when the soils are saturated in water there is
less carbon being released, this carbon not being released is a significant
difference.
B) The reasons for the differences are that when there is a lot of water
present in the soil the carbon is unable to diffuse the water because the
water is basically absorbing it and a lot of it is getting lost in the water and
 not being released back into the atmosphere. Where as when we look at the
carbon being released from moist soils we can come to the conclusion that
there is less water for the carbon to diffuse through so it makes it easier for
the carbon to travel out into the atmosphere quicker and easier.
3. The effects of fertilizers on rates of release of carbon from the soils is that
when a soil contains fertilizer more carbon is able to be released due to it
helping the plant grow.
4. The differences in temperature, amount of water in the soil and the amount
of fertilizer all have a great impact on the release of carbon, but the one that
has the greatest impact would have to be the amount of water in the soil, this
would be due to the fact that when the fertilizers are added to the soil and
the temperature changes, these factors would just add to the amount of
carbon being released.

Questions on Page 188

1. A) The year in which the leaves opened earliest would be 1999.

B) The year in which the mean temperatures in March and April were at their
lowest would be 1994.
2. A) The relationship between temperatures in March and April and the date of
opening of leaves on horse chestnut trees is that when the temperature is at
its lowest the leaves open later, when the temperature hits 0 so between
really cold and really hot the leaves open at the mean and then once it turns
really hot the leaves open a lot earlier.
B) There is evidence of global warming towards the end of the 20th century
because when we look at the graph we can see that every year from the
1970s’s the temperature went from having a mean of 1 degrees then in the
1980s went to about 1.5 degrees, then in the 1990’s it stayed at about 2
degrees but as it reached the end of the 1990’s it started to continually
increase. It went from being 1 degrees in the end of 1990’s and then at the
beginning of the 2000’s went to 2 degrees.

Questions on Page 191

A) The two periods when the drought index remained high for three or more
years was 1965-1970 and 1990-2000.
B) I) The beetles outbreak in the 1970s’ was different to the beetles outbreak in
the 1990’s because in the 1970’s there were about 500 km2 of tree mortality
and throughout the years to the 1990’s there was a decrease in the 1980’s
and then once it reached the 1990’s there was a significant increase in the
outbreak of beetles.
 II) The reasons for the differences in the outbreaks were due to the
temperature, because in the 1970’s the air was generally more moist than in
the 1990’s, so once the 1990’s hit and it became more dry this allowed the
beetles to live longer.
C) The rates of destruction of spruce trees in the future would be that due to
global warming the beetles will have another outbreak because it will become
warmer and warmer.