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The biosphere (from Ancient Greek βίος (bíos) 'life' and σφαῖρα (sphaîra) 'sphere'), also called the ecosphere (from Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos) 'settlement, house' and σφαῖρα (sphaîra) 'sphere'), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems.
J.B. Lamarck defined the term biosphere. When modern biologists mention the biosphere they usually mean the best part of the Earth's crust, which is the lithosphere and hydrosphere, and of the lower parts of the Earth's lower parts, which is the troposphere. All these together and the living organisms make up the biosphere.
The concept of biological integrity first appeared in the 1972 amendments to the U.S. Federal Water Pollution Control Act, also known as the Clean Water Act. [4] The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had used the term as a way to gauge the standards to which water should be maintained, but the vocabulary instigated years of debate about the implications of not only the ...
For levels larger than Biosphere or Ecosphere, see Earth's location in the Universe More complex schemes incorporate many more levels. For example, a molecule can be viewed as a grouping of elements , and an atom can be further divided into subatomic particles (these levels are outside the scope of biological organisation).
Biology is the scientific study of life. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] For instance, all organisms are composed of at least one cell that processes hereditary information encoded in genes , which can be transmitted ...
The deep biosphere is the part of the biosphere that resides below the first few meters of the ocean's surface. It extends 10 kilometers below the continental surface and 21 kilometers below the sea surface, at temperatures that may reach beyond 120 °C (248 °F) [ 2 ] which is comparable to the maximum temperature where a metabolically active ...
The largest scale of ecological organization is the biosphere: the total sum of ecosystems on the planet. ... The biology of life operates within a certain range of ...
Biogeochemistry is the scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment (including the biosphere, the cryosphere, the hydrosphere, the pedosphere, the atmosphere, and the lithosphere).