129 Environment Trivia Questions and Answers
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Easy Environment Trivia Questions
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Which emissions chiefly cause acid rain?
Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides
Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides react with water and oxygen in the atmosphere to form sulfuric and nitric acids, which fall as acid rain. These pollutants can travel long distances before returning to Earth.
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Which form of pollution was blamed for dying lakes in Scandinavia and dying forests in central Europe through the 1970s and 1980s?
Acid rain
Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from coal burning and vehicle exhaust turn into sulfuric and nitric acid in the air and come down in rain and snow. The acid stripped nutrients from forest soils and pushed lake water acidic enough to kill the fish, until emissions limits cut the pollutants back.
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Which greenhouse gas from human activity drives the most warming, by sheer volume released?
Carbon dioxide
Atmospheric CO2 has climbed from about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution to over 420 ppm today. Charles David Keeling began recording it continuously at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii in 1958, producing the rising trend line now known as the Keeling Curve.
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A reef with hundreds of species scores highly on which ecological measure?
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the variety of life in a place, or across the planet as a whole. The word is a contraction of biological diversity and only entered wide use in the late 1980s.
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Which carbon sink is turning more acidic because of the CO2 it absorbs?
The ocean
The ocean has taken up roughly a quarter of the carbon dioxide people have released. Dissolving that gas makes seawater more acidic, which makes it harder for corals and shellfish to build their skeletons and shells.
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Which carbon-cycle process lets growing plants take in carbon dioxide?
Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis lets growing plants absorb carbon dioxide and use sunlight to turn its carbon into sugars for growth. Oxygen is released as a byproduct.
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What term measures climate-warming emissions linked to an activity or person?
Carbon footprint
A carbon footprint measures the greenhouse-gas emissions caused directly and indirectly by an activity or person. It includes gases beyond carbon dioxide, expressed together as carbon dioxide equivalents.
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Which poisonous gas is produced by incomplete combustion?
Carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas produced when fuels burn incompletely.
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Which class of older industrial chemicals became closely associated with damage to the ozone layer?
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
CFCs are ozone-depleting substances. In the stratosphere, their breakdown releases chlorine or bromine atoms that deplete ozone.
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What economic model emphasizes reuse, repair and recycling to reduce waste?
Circular economy
A circular economy keeps products and materials in use and aims to reduce waste and resource extraction.
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Building flood defences and switching to heat-tolerant crops are examples of which response to climate change?
Adaptation
Adaptation means adjusting to effects that are already happening or expected: flood defences, different crop varieties, heatwave plans. Mitigation is the other half of the pair: cutting the emissions that cause the warming in the first place.
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What soil amendment can be made from recycled food scraps and yard trimmings?
Compost
Compost is produced by recycling organic materials such as food scraps and yard trimmings into a soil amendment.
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What marine ecosystem forms from colonies of tiny animals with hard skeletons?
Coral reef
A coral reef forms from colonies of tiny coral animals called polyps, which build hard calcium carbonate skeletons. Over time, these skeletons accumulate into the reef structures that support thousands of marine species.
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What term means converting wooded areas to another land use?
Deforestation
Deforestation is the conversion of forest to another use, such as cropland, cattle pasture or building. Thinning or damaging a forest that remains a forest counts as degradation instead.
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What prolonged weather pattern brings unusually little precipitation?
Drought
A drought is a stretch of unusually low precipitation long enough to draw down soil moisture, rivers and reservoirs. It is measured against what a place normally gets, so a wet region can be in drought on rainfall a desert would call a good year.
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What kind of energy does Earth emit to space after absorbing sunlight?
Infrared radiation
The Sun is hot enough to radiate mostly visible light, while Earth's cooler surface radiates at longer, infrared wavelengths, the same reason a hot stove element glows red rather than white. Gases in the atmosphere trap part of that outgoing infrared and send it back down, keeping the surface warmer than it would otherwise be.
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What is the practice of assisting the recovery of a degraded or destroyed ecosystem called?
Ecological restoration
Ecological restoration is the practice of helping a degraded, damaged or destroyed ecosystem recover: replanting native species, pulling out invasives, re-flooding drained wetland, reopening a river blocked by a dam. The aim is a system that sustains itself without further intervention.
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Old phones, screens and computers are kept out of ordinary landfill mainly because they contain what?
Heavy metals such as lead and mercury
Discarded electronics carry lead in old solder and screens, mercury in backlights and switches, and cadmium in batteries. Buried in ordinary landfill these leach into soil and groundwater, so e-waste is collected separately, which also makes it possible to recover the gold, copper and rare earths inside.
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What coastal area forms where freshwater mixes with seawater?
Estuary
An estuary is a coastal area where freshwater mixes with seawater.
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What is a single straight-line sequence of organisms, each one eaten by the next, called?
Food chain
A food chain runs in one line, grass to rabbit to fox, each link passing on a fraction of the energy it took in. Because most animals eat more than one thing, real chains interlock into a branching food web.
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In a forest, what layer is formed by the crowns of its trees?
Canopy
The canopy is the upper forest layer formed by the crowns and branches of trees. It intercepts much of the sunlight and rainfall and provides habitat for many forest organisms.
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Which ecosystem locks up the most carbon per hectare on land?
Forests
Forests act as terrestrial carbon sinks because trees absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and store the carbon in trunks, branches, roots, and soil. Much of a forest’s carbon can remain locked away for decades or centuries if the ecosystem is not disturbed.
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Coal, oil, and natural gas are collectively called what?
Fossil fuels
Coal, oil, and natural gas are fossil fuels, formed from the remains of ancient plants and organisms over millions of years. Because they take so long to form, they are considered nonrenewable energy sources.
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What ecological term names an organism's usual living environment?
Habitat
A habitat is the natural environment where an organism lives. The National Park Service identifies habitat as essential to organisms' survival.
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In the Atlantic, what is a tropical cyclone called once its sustained winds reach 74 mph (119 km/h)?
Hurricane
An Atlantic tropical cyclone becomes a hurricane at sustained winds of 74 mph; below that it is a tropical storm. The same storm would be called a typhoon in the north-west Pacific and simply a cyclone in the Indian Ocean and around Australia.
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What is a harmful non-native species called?
Invasive species
Invasive species are introduced organisms that establish and spread while causing environmental, economic, or human-health harm.
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What engineered site is used to bury solid waste?
Landfill
A landfill is an engineered site where solid waste is placed and covered.
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Which metal in old paint and old plumbing is especially harmful to children's developing nervous systems?
Lead
Lead damages the developing brain, affecting learning and behaviour, and young children take up far more of it through the gut than adults do. Lead paint and lead water pipes are the classic sources, which is why both were phased out of new building.
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What collective name is given to the salt-tolerant trees and shrubs that form tropical coastal wetland forests?
Mangroves
Mangroves are the roughly seventy species of trees and shrubs, drawn from many unrelated plant families, that grow in the salty tidal zone of tropical and subtropical coasts. They either filter salt out at the roots or push it back out through their leaves, and their tangled aerial roots trap sediment, shelter young fish and blunt storm surges.
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What are fragments of manufactured polymers under 5 millimetres commonly called?
Microplastics
Fragments of manufactured polymers smaller than 5 millimetres are called microplastics. They can form when larger plastic items break down or be released directly from products such as synthetic clothing and cosmetics.
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Which international agreement phases out ozone-depleting chemicals?
Montreal Protocol
The Montreal Protocol is the global agreement designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out substances that deplete it.
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In which atmospheric layer is most of Earth's ozone found?
Stratosphere
The ozone layer is a region of the stratosphere containing relatively high ozone concentrations.
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Ozone, the gas that shields the Earth from ultraviolet radiation, is made of which element?
Oxygen
Ozone is oxygen wearing a different hat: three atoms bonded together as O3, rather than the two-atom O2 we breathe. High in the stratosphere, ultraviolet light constantly splits ozone apart and the fragments recombine, and it is that endless breaking and remaking that soaks up the radiation before it reaches the ground.
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In a food web, what is an animal that kills and eats other animals called?
Predator
A predator is an animal that hunts and eats other animals.
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Which water-collection method do some drought-prone places now require every new building to install?
Rainwater harvesting
Roof runoff is guttered into a rain barrel or underground tank and reused for watering, washing and flushing, cutting demand on the mains. Bermuda has no natural springs or rivers, so its building code requires every roof to be shaped and guttered to catch rain for storage on site.
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What term describes a polluted haze often found over cities?
Smog
Smog is a blend of the words smoke and fog, coined for the coal hazes that used to settle over British cities. The modern kind is photochemical: sunlight reacts with exhaust fumes to make ground-level ozone, which is why it peaks on hot, still, sunny afternoons.
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What process carries soil away by wind or water?
Erosion
Erosion is the process in which wind or water wears away and carries off soil and rock. The material moved by erosion can later settle elsewhere as sediment.
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What process lets bacteria make atmospheric N₂ usable by plants?
Nitrogen fixation
Bacteria convert atmospheric N₂ into forms plants can use through nitrogen fixation. The other choices are real nitrogen-cycle processes but describe different conversions.
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What power source generates electricity as coastal waters move in and out?
Tidal energy
Tidal energy generates electricity from the regular movement of ocean water as tides rise and fall.
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What is a violently rotating column of air extending from a thunderstorm to the ground?
Tornado
A tornado must touch both the base of a thunderstorm and the ground. The strongest ones descend from the broad rotating updraught inside a supercell, and the same vortex over water is called a waterspout.
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What urban approach uses vegetation, soils, and natural processes to manage stormwater?
Green infrastructure
Green infrastructure uses plants, soils, or permeable substrates to capture and infiltrate or reuse stormwater.
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What area of land drains precipitation to a common outlet such as a river, lake, or ocean?
Watershed
A watershed is an area in which water and sediment drain to a common outlet such as a river, lake, bay, or ocean.
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What is the highest air temperature ever officially recorded on Earth?
56.7°C (134°F)
The reading came from Furnace Creek in Death Valley, California, on 10 July 1913 and is still recognised by the World Meteorological Organization despite some modern meteorologists questioning whether the 1913 equipment and methods were fully reliable. A higher claim of 57.8°C from Libya in 1922 stood as the record for 90 years until the WMO formally disqualified it in 2012 over measurement errors.
Medium Environment Trivia Questions
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What term describes members of one species living in the same area?
A population
A population is a group of individuals of the same species living in the same area.
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What is it called when an animal takes in a pollutant faster than it can break down or excrete it?
Bioaccumulation
The classic case is DDT, which built up in fish and then moved further up the food chain into birds of prey. It thinned their eggshells so badly that bald eagle and peregrine falcon numbers collapsed, before the United States banned the pesticide in 1972.
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What is the rising concentration of a pollutant at each successive level of a food chain called?
Biomagnification
Biomagnification is the step-by-step rise in a pollutant's concentration up a food chain, because each predator takes in everything its prey has already stored. DDT and mercury are the classic cases, which is why top predators such as ospreys and tuna carry the heaviest loads.
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Which cleanup method uses bacteria and fungi to break down contaminants?
Bioremediation
Bioremediation uses microorganisms to degrade organic contaminants in soil, groundwater, sludge, or solids.
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What term describes capturing and storing CO₂ in natural or geologic reservoirs?
Carbon sequestration
Carbon sequestration is the capture and long-term storage of carbon dioxide in natural systems or underground geologic formations. In geologic sequestration, CO₂ can be injected deep underground into formations such as saline aquifers or depleted oil and gas reservoirs.
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Which environmental term means a net removal of atmospheric CO₂?
Carbon sink
A carbon sink absorbs more atmospheric CO₂ than it releases, reducing the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere. Oceans, forests, and soils are major natural carbon sinks.
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At the annual climate summits, what does COP stand for?
Conference of the Parties
The Conference of the Parties is the decision-making meeting of the countries that signed the UN climate convention, which is why the summits are numbered COP26, COP27 and so on.
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What stress most commonly triggers coral bleaching?
Abnormally warm water
Water even a degree or two above the usual summer maximum, held for weeks, makes corals expel the algae living in their tissues that supply most of their food and all of their colour, leaving the white skeleton showing through. Bleached coral is not dead and can recover, but it starves if the heat does not break.
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Which process returns the nutrients locked in dead plants and animals to the soil?
Decomposition
Decomposition breaks down dead organisms and returns simpler compounds and nutrients to the environment.
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What is land degradation in dry areas that reduces biological productivity called?
Desertification
Desertification is the degradation of land in dry areas that reduces its biological productivity. It can be driven by factors such as unsustainable farming, overgrazing, drought, and climate change.
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Roughly what share of the energy at one level of a food chain passes to the level above it?
About 10%
Most of the energy an animal takes in is spent on movement, warmth and everyday upkeep, or lost as waste, and only a small slice ends up as body mass a predator can eat. Ecologists use about 10% as a rule of thumb rather than a fixed constant, and it is why food chains rarely run beyond four or five links.
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In ecology, which term covers a species' whole way of making a living: what it eats, where it feeds, and what conditions it can tolerate?
Ecological niche
A species' ecological niche is its whole way of making a living: what it eats, where and when it feeds, what preys on it, and the range of temperature, moisture and light it can tolerate. Two species with identical niches cannot coexist indefinitely in one place; one out-competes the other.
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What adjective describes a species found naturally only in one geographic area?
Endemic
An endemic species occurs naturally in a particular geographic area and nowhere else.
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What formal process examines a proposed project's likely ecological effects before approval?
Environmental impact assessment
An environmental impact assessment evaluates a proposed project’s likely effects on the environment before approval. It can also identify ways to avoid, reduce, or mitigate those effects.
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In an ocean dead zone, decomposing algae strip the water of what fish need to survive. What is the resulting condition called?
Hypoxia
When a nutrient-fed algal bloom dies, the bacteria decomposing it consume the dissolved oxygen in the water. What is left is hypoxia: oxygen too low to keep fish alive, so they either flee or suffocate. The Gulf of Mexico dead zone can spread across several thousand square miles.
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What process can cause algal blooms when waters receive excess nutrients?
Eutrophication
Eutrophication is nutrient enrichment of water that can stimulate excessive algal and plant growth.
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Which pollutant forms when nitrogen oxides and VOCs react in sunlight?
Ground-level ozone
Ground-level ozone is formed in the atmosphere when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds react in sunlight.
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Which renewable source has long generated more of the world's electricity than any other?
Hydropower
Hydropower supplies roughly a seventh of all the electricity generated worldwide, more than any other renewable source, by letting falling or flowing water spin turbines. China, Brazil, Canada and the United States produce the most of it.
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Conserving a species in the place it naturally lives, rather than in zoos or seed banks, is called what?
In situ conservation
In situ means in place: national parks, reserves and habitat protection, keeping viable populations where the species already lives. Its counterpart, ex situ conservation, holds a species away from its habitat in zoos, botanic gardens and gene banks.
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What kind of species has an ecosystem impact much larger than its abundance suggests?
Keystone species
A keystone species has a disproportionately large effect on its ecosystem relative to its abundance.
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Which climate pattern brings cooler-than-usual sea-surface temperatures to the central and eastern equatorial Pacific?
La Niña
La Niña is the cool phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Strengthened trade winds push warm surface water towards Asia and let cold water rise along the coast of South America, shifting rainfall and storm tracks worldwide.
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Which gas makes up about half of landfill gas and can be used as fuel?
Methane
Methane makes up about half of landfill gas and can be captured and burned as a fuel. It is also a potent greenhouse gas, so using it for energy can help prevent its release into the atmosphere.
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Which gas makes up the largest share of Earth's atmosphere?
Nitrogen
Nitrogen makes up about 78 percent of Earth's atmosphere, more than any other gas.
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Which process do corals use to build their hard skeletons?
Calcification
Corals lay down a skeleton of calcium carbonate, a process called calcification. As the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the air its water turns slightly more acidic and carbonate ions become scarcer, so building and holding that skeleton costs the animal more energy.
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What compound forms as seawater absorbs CO₂?
Carbonic acid
The reaction lowers ocean pH by releasing hydrogen ions, a process called ocean acidification that makes it harder for corals, oysters and other marine organisms to build calcium carbonate shells and skeletons.
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What treatment breaks oil slicks into smaller droplets?
Dispersant
Dispersants contain surfactants that break petroleum oil into small droplets that disperse into the water column.
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Which principle calls for action when serious environmental damage remains uncertain?
Precautionary principle
The precautionary principle calls for protective action when serious or irreversible environmental harm is possible, even if scientific certainty is incomplete. It is enshrined in Principle 15 of the 1992 Rio Declaration.
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Who wrote the environmental warning book Silent Spring?
Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, the 1962 book that documented the ecological dangers of pesticides.
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What shallow planted hollow, dug beside a downpipe or driveway, is designed to let runoff soak into the ground?
Rain garden
A rain garden is a shallow dish of ground, planted up and fed by roof and paving runoff, that holds a downpour and lets it drain away into the soil over a day or so instead of surging into the sewers. Deep-rooted plants keep the soil open and the soil strips out grit and oil on the way through.
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Which international agreement focuses on conserving wetlands?
Ramsar Convention
The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty dedicated to the conservation and wise use of wetlands.
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Which term describes re-establishing tree cover on land that was forest until recently?
Reforestation
Reforestation puts trees back where a forest recently stood, after logging, fire or clearance for farming. Afforestation is the neighbouring term for planting forest on ground that has carried no trees for a very long time, or never has, such as grassland or moor.
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What practice uses vegetation between harvests to protect soil from erosion?
Cover crops
Cover crops such as rye, clover or vetch are sown between cash crops to keep the ground covered when it would otherwise sit bare. The canopy takes the impact of the rain, and the living roots hold the soil in place through the winter.
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What term describes the fraction of sunlight a surface reflects?
Albedo
Albedo is the reflectivity of a surface; bright snow and ice generally have higher albedo than dark land or ocean.
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Which forestry method harvests individual trees instead of whole stands?
Selective logging
Selective logging harvests individual trees or small groups while leaving much of the surrounding forest standing. When carefully managed, it can preserve more of the forest’s structure and habitat than removing an entire stand.
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Which biome forms a broad belt of coniferous forest across Canada and Siberia?
Taiga
The taiga, or boreal forest, is a vast belt of mainly coniferous woodland across the far north.
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Why can a temperature inversion worsen smog?
It traps polluted air near the ground
A temperature inversion places warmer air above cooler surface air, preventing normal upward mixing and trapping pollutants close to the ground. The pollution can build up until wind or changing weather disperses it.
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Which water-cycle process releases water vapor from plant leaves?
Transpiration
Transpiration is the release of water vapor from plants, mainly through tiny openings in their leaves.
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Which biome is typically treeless and underlain by permafrost?
Tundra
Tundra is a cold, mostly treeless biome whose soils commonly include permafrost.
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What phenomenon makes built-up areas warmer than nearby less-developed areas?
Urban heat island
An urban heat island occurs when buildings, roads, and other paved surfaces absorb and re-release more heat than natural landscapes, making cities warmer than nearby less-developed areas. The effect is often strongest at night, when those surfaces slowly release the heat they stored during the day.
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In the waste hierarchy, what is the term for preventing waste from being created at all, rather than dealing with it afterwards?
Source reduction
Source reduction sits at the top of the waste hierarchy, above reuse, recycling and energy recovery, because waste that is never made costs nothing to collect, sort or burn. Thinner packaging and refillable containers are everyday examples.
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Which wastewater stage uses microorganisms to remove most dissolved organic matter?
Secondary treatment
Secondary treatment uses biological processes to remove biodegradable dissolved and suspended organic matter.
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Which atmospheric gas is Earth's most abundant greenhouse gas?
Water vapor
Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas; its amount in the atmosphere is strongly influenced by temperature, making it an important feedback.
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A marsh holds back storm water and lets it out slowly over the following days. What is this wetland service called?
Flood attenuation
Flood attenuation is the flattening of a flood peak. A wetland stores a surge of rain and releases it over hours or days, so the water reaching towns downstream arrives lower and later than it otherwise would.
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The Great Barrier Reef, the Galapagos Islands and Yellowstone all hold which international designation?
Natural World Heritage site
UNESCO's World Heritage List has a natural strand alongside the cultural one, and a place joins it by showing what the convention calls outstanding universal value: exceptional geology, ecosystems, natural beauty or habitat for threatened species. Yellowstone was on the very first list in 1978.
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What is the diameter of the largest hailstone ever officially verified in the United States, which fell near Vivian, South Dakota, in 2010?
20.3 cm (8.0 in)
The stone also set the U.S. weight record at 0.88 kg (1.94 lb) and had reportedly measured even larger before part of it melted ahead of being officially measured. It was found by a local resident after a severe thunderstorm and validated by the National Climate Extremes Committee.
Hard Environment Trivia Questions
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What is contaminated land formerly used for industry or commerce called?
A brownfield
A brownfield is previously developed property whose reuse may be complicated by actual or suspected contamination.
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What is the name for a sudden release of dissolved gas from deep lake water, as at Lake Nyos?
A limnic eruption
A limnic eruption is the sudden release of dissolved carbon dioxide from deep lake water, producing a dangerous gas cloud.
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What term describes a set of local populations linked by occasional dispersal?
A metapopulation
A metapopulation consists of separate local populations of the same species connected by occasional movement of individuals.
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What is the vegetated area alongside a river or stream called?
A riparian zone
A riparian zone is the strip of land and vegetation directly alongside a river, stream, or other flowing waterway.
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Which naturally occurring contaminant is a major groundwater concern in Bangladesh?
Arsenic
Arsenic contamination of groundwater is a major public-health problem in Bangladesh and other regions.
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Which British ecologist introduced the term ecosystem in a 1935 paper?
Arthur Tansley
Arthur Tansley introduced the term ecosystem in his 1935 paper The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms.
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Which treaty regulates transboundary movements and disposal of hazardous wastes?
Basel Convention
The Basel Convention governs shipments of hazardous waste between countries. It was adopted in 1989 after a run of scandals in which toxic waste from industrialised nations was dumped in poorer ones, and its central aim is to stop that trade rather than to manage chemicals or pollutants in general.
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What measure estimates organic matter breakdown by microbes in water?
Biochemical oxygen demand
Biochemical oxygen demand measures how much dissolved oxygen microbes use while breaking down organic matter in water. A standard test often measures this oxygen use over five days at 20°C.
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The Convention on Biological Diversity describes biodiversity at which three levels?
Genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity
The 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity defines biodiversity as variety within species, between species and of ecosystems, which is to say genetic, species and ecosystem diversity. Nearly every country has signed it, so those three levels frame most national conservation targets.
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Which UNESCO designation has core, buffer, and transition zones?
Biosphere reserve
UNESCO biosphere reserves use core, buffer, and transition zones to combine conservation with research and sustainable local activity.
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Which engineered system uses planted beds of gravel, soil and reeds to clean wastewater or runoff?
Constructed wetland
A constructed wetland is a man-made bed of gravel, soil and water plants where bacteria growing on the roots and grains strip nutrients, solids and pollutants out of water as it passes slowly through. They treat sewage for small communities, mine drainage and stormwater at a fraction of the running cost of a mechanical plant.
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What is the term for a species whose condition is used to gauge the health of an environment?
Bioindicator
A bioindicator is a species or biological response used to read environmental conditions directly. Lichens thin out where the air carries sulphur dioxide, and mayfly larvae vanish from streams fouled by sewage or farm runoff, so counting them reveals the state of the air or water without a single chemical test.
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How much disturbance an ecosystem can absorb before it flips into a different state is called what?
Ecological resilience
The idea was introduced by ecologist C.S. Holling in 1973. A clear lake that tips into a permanently algae-choked state after nutrient runoff, or a coral reef that flips to algae-covered rubble after a bleaching event, is a classic example of an ecosystem crossing that threshold.
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In habitat restoration, what is an intact or historical site used as the benchmark for what a damaged site should become called?
Reference ecosystem
A reference ecosystem is a nearby intact site, or a picture assembled from historical records and old surveys, showing what a damaged habitat could realistically become. Restoration teams use it to set targets and to judge, years later, whether the work took.
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What is the name for a transition zone between two neighboring ecosystems?
Ecotone
An ecotone is an area of gradual transition between two or more ecosystems.
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What environmental policy assigns end-of-life impacts of goods to the businesses behind them?
Extended producer responsibility
Extended producer responsibility makes producers responsible for managing or financing a product’s impacts at the end of its life. It can encourage businesses to design products that use fewer materials and are easier to reuse or recycle.
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Which two recurring events stop grasslands from turning into forest?
Fire and grazing
Regular fire and heavy grazing kill tree seedlings, while grasses survive both because they regrow from growing points at or below ground level. That is why prairies and savannas stay open instead of closing over into woodland.
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What process splits one continuous natural area into smaller, isolated patches?
Habitat fragmentation
Habitat fragmentation divides a once-continuous habitat into smaller patches that are often separated from one another.
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Which method measures a product's environmental impact across its whole existence, from raw materials to disposal?
Life-cycle assessment
A life-cycle assessment adds up a product's environmental burden at every stage: extracting the raw materials, manufacturing, transport, years of use, and final disposal or recycling. It is often called a cradle-to-grave study, and it is why an electric car is judged on battery mining and end-of-life recycling as well as on what comes out of the tailpipe.
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What term covers carbon stored by mangroves, marshes, and seagrass beds?
Blue carbon
Blue carbon refers to carbon captured by ocean and coastal ecosystems and stored in biomass and sediments.
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What conservation term describes a zone that bans fishing and resource removal?
A marine reserve
Inside the boundary, breeding fish and shellfish are left undisturbed long enough for numbers and body size to recover, and some of that surplus drifts or swims across the line into waters that are still fished. Studies of reserves such as California's Channel Islands have measured this spillover increasing biomass in the fished waters just outside the boundary.
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What term describes the smallest group expected to persist for a stated period despite normal risks?
Minimum viable population
A minimum viable population is the smallest population size expected to survive for a specified period with an acceptable level of certainty. It is not a universal number because it depends on the species, environment, and persistence goal.
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Which step of the nitrogen cycle converts nitrate in soil back into nitrogen gas?
Denitrification
Denitrification is carried out by bacteria in waterlogged soils and sediments where oxygen is scarce. They strip oxygen from nitrate and step it down through nitrite and nitrous oxide to plain nitrogen gas, which escapes to the air. It is the return leg of the cycle, balancing the fixation that pulls nitrogen out of the atmosphere in the first place.
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What long-term change in seawater is caused by absorbing excess atmospheric CO2?
Ocean acidification
Ocean acidification is the long-term decline in seawater pH caused mainly by the ocean absorbing additional carbon dioxide.
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Which class of chemicals, including DDT and PCBs, is banned worldwide by the Stockholm Convention?
Persistent organic pollutants
The Stockholm Convention took effect in 2004 and initially listed twelve substances, nicknamed the 'dirty dozen', including DDT and PCBs. These chemicals accumulate in fatty tissue and become more concentrated at each step up the food chain, building up to high levels in top predators.
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Which major plant nutrient cycles mainly through rock, soil, water and living things, with no significant gas phase in the air?
Phosphorus
Unlike carbon, nitrogen and sulfur, phosphorus has no meaningful atmospheric stage: it moves from weathering rock through soil, water and organisms and back into sediment.
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What cleanup approach uses plants to remove or contain contaminants?
Phytoremediation
Phytoremediation uses vegetation as a cleanup or containment technique for contaminants in soil or groundwater.
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The plastics industry ships its raw material as lentil-sized pellets, which spill in transit and wash up on beaches. What are those pellets nicknamed?
Nurdles
Nurdles are pre-production plastic pellets, melted down at factories and moulded into bottles, packaging and car parts. Trillions are shipped each year, and losses at sea and in handling scatter them along coastlines worldwide, where they rank among the largest single sources of microplastic pollution and are swallowed by seabirds and fish that mistake them for food.
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What ecological term describes the rate at which producers convert energy into organic matter?
Primary productivity
Primary productivity is the rate at which plants, algae, or other autotrophs produce biomass, usually through photosynthesis.
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Which treaty targets persistent organic pollutants?
Stockholm Convention
The Stockholm Convention requires measures to eliminate, restrict, or reduce releases of persistent organic pollutants.
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What name is given to the fertile, charcoal-rich dark soils created by ancient communities in parts of Amazonia?
Terra preta
Terra preta, or Amazonian dark earth, is unusually fertile soil enriched by charcoal and other materials left by past human activity.
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Which region includes the seafloor and organisms living on or in it?
The benthic zone
The benthic zone consists of the ocean floor and the organisms that live on or within its sediments.
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What measure compares human demand on nature with Earth's capacity to regenerate resources?
The ecological footprint
An ecological footprint estimates the biologically productive area needed to provide resources and absorb waste for a population.
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Which model explains why larger, less isolated landmasses tend to support more species?
The theory of island biogeography
The theory of island biogeography relates the number of species on an island to its area and its isolation from a source of colonists.
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What term describes ground that collapses into irregular hollows as permafrost thaws?
Thermokarst
Thermokarst is irregular terrain formed when thawing ground ice causes permafrost surfaces to subside and collapse.
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What food-web effect links a change at one level to indirect changes at others?
Trophic cascade
A trophic cascade is a series of effects in which a change in predators or prey indirectly alters organisms at other feeding levels.
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Which conservation term describes a species chosen for protection because the sheer size of the range it needs shelters many others?
Umbrella species
An umbrella species needs a very large area of habitat, so setting aside enough ground for it automatically protects the smaller species living inside that range. Tigers and grizzly bears are used this way.
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What ocean process brings cold, nutrient-rich deep water to the surface?
Upwelling
Upwelling carries cold, nutrient-rich water from depth toward the ocean surface, supporting high productivity.
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Which wastewater stage mainly removes settleable solids by physical processes?
Primary treatment
Primary wastewater treatment uses physical processes such as screening and settling to remove solids.
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What water-rights doctrine is commonly summarized as 'first in time, first in right'?
Prior appropriation
Prior appropriation is the doctrine that gives priority to the earliest users who put water to beneficial use. During shortages, those “senior” rights generally take precedence over later claims.
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Which renewable source is intermittent rather than dispatchable?
Wind energy
Turbine output rises and falls directly with wind speed, so grid operators typically pair it with batteries or backup generation that can ramp up quickly when the wind drops.
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