Round 4 ...

Abiotic factors

The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers

Competitive Exclusion Principle (In ecology, the competitive exclusion principle, sometimes referred to as Gause's law, is a proposition named for Georgy Gause that two species competing for the same limited resource cannot coexist at constant population values. When one species has even the slightest advantage over another, the one with the advantage will dominate in the long term. This leads either to the extinction of the weaker competitor or to an evolutionary or behavioral shift toward a different ecological niche. The principle has been paraphrased in the maxim "complete competitors can not coexist")

Deserts and semi-deserts are home to ecosystems with low or very low biomass and primary productivity in arid or semi-arid climates. 

Extinction (is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence)

Fire Island National Seashore is a United States National Seashore that protects a 26-mile section of Fire Island, an approximately 30-mile long barrier island separated from Long Island by the Great South Bay. The island is part of New York State's Suffolk County.

Greenhouse Effect (is the process by which radiation from a planet's atmosphere warms the planet's surface to a temperature above what it would be without this atmosphere. Radiatively active gases (i.e., greenhouse gases) in a planet's atmosphere radiate energy in all directions. Part of this radiation is directed towards the surface, thus warming it. The intensity of downward radiation – that is, the strength of the greenhouse effect – depends on the amount of greenhouse gases that the atmosphere contains. The temperature rises until the intensity of upward radiation from the surface, thus cooling it, balances the downward flow of energy)

Calling it a night.............................

The hadal zone (named after the realm of Hades, the underworld in Greek mythology), also known as the hadopelagic zone, is the deepest region of the ocean lying within oceanic trenches. The hadal zone is found from a depth of around 6,000 to 11,000 metres (20,000 to 36,000 ft), and exists in long but narrow topographic V-shaped depressions

Invasive Species (is most often a non-native species (an introduced species) that spreads from a point of introduction to become naturalized and negatively alters its new environment. Although their spread can have beneficial aspects, invasive species adversely affect the invaded habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. Sometimes the term is used for native species that invade human habitats and become invasive pests. In the 21st century they have become a serious economic, social, and environmental threat)

Zebra Mussels are an issue in MN, so we have these signs and lots of billboards about this issue around the state.....

Off to work.........................

Jaguar - The elusive, powerful, strikingly colored jaguar (Panthera onca) is the largest feline of North and South America. Formerly it ranged from the southeastern United States to the tip of South America. Now restricted in distribution because of human activities, such as hunting and clearing of land for agriculture, building and grazing, jaguars live mostly in Mexico, Central America and Brazil. Although jaguars can live in scrub and deserts, they need fresh water in their habitat, and are commonest in rainforests, savannahs and swamps.