Express, result, change, act, term, function, form, release

Exercise 5. Find in the text and write out the words which consist of two words (for example - limestone).

Exercise 6. Give the Infinitive of the following verbs. Told, gave, known, made, led, came, thought, taken, called, climbed, put, written, included, defined, saw.

Exercise 7. Read and translate the text.

Biosphere

The biosphere is the surface zone of the Earth and adjacent atmosphere, in which organic life exists. It includes the low part of the atmosphere, the entire hydrosphere down to its maximum depth, soils, and the lithosphere. According to V.I.Vernadsky the biosphere is the "field of the existence of living matter". According to "Britanica encyclopedia", the biosphere is the complex of physical, chemical, and biotic factors that act upon an organism or an ecological community and ultimately determine its form and survival.

Academician V.I.Vernadsky is the originator of the modern theory of biosphere. The biosphere is an earth's envelope - complex in composition,

Construction and organization. It includes all living organisms, biogenous (coal, petroleum, limestones, etc.), inert and bioinert (formed with the aid of living organisms) substances, and also the substance of cosmic origin. The biosphere includes all living organisms interacting with the physical environment of the Earth and living in the hydrosphere, atmosphere, and lithosphere.

Migration of chemical elements in the biosphere is associated with the vital functions of living organisms, their breathing, nutrition, breeding, death, and decay. The living matter changes the history of all chemical elements and acts as a deep, powerful geological process.

As a result of the technogenic activity of mankind, the biosphere of the Earth is radically transformed and becomes, as defined by I.V.Vernadsky, the noosphere, a sphere of mind. Noosphere (from Greek noos, "mind"), in theoretical biology, is that part of the world of life that is strongly affected by man's conceptual thought. The noosphere, as proposed by scientific theorists, is the level of the intellect, as opposed to the geosphere, or nonliving world, and the biosphere, or living world. The noosphere is a fundamentally new phrase in the development of biosphere. It means harmony between man and his environment, the end of pollution, the exploitation of natural resources. The creation of the noosphere is the common way to our future. It is a new geological phenomenon on our planet. In the noospere, the man for the first time becomes the greatest geological power.

The living organisms in the biosphere can be studied at the levels of populations and ecosystems. A study of the relations of organisms to one another and to their abiotic env ironment at the level of species populations, and biogeocenosis is called ecology, or a more simple term, environmental biology. Ecology is the study of the structure and function of nature. The main goals of modern ecology include study of anthropogenic changes in the man's environment. In ecology the term population is used to denote a group of organisms occupying a specific geographic area.

The community of individual and the nonliving (abionic) environment functioning together is an ecological system or ecosystem. Plants can exist only by receiving carbon dioxide, water, oxygen, mineral salts. Organisms capable of synthesizing organic nutrients from inorganic substance with use of sun energy are termed autotrophs. And those doing it with the use of energy released by chemical reactions are known as hemotrophes. The organisms feeding on ready organic substances are called heterotrophic organisms.

The autotrophs and hemotrophes producing an organic substance from inorganic compounds arc termed producers. Consumers are organisms feeding on an organic substance and transforming it into new forms. The biomass is expressed in dry weight of living matter in term of a given area. The quantity of organic matter (in the form of living matter, stored food, waste products) or its equivalent in dry matter, carbon, or energy content which is accumulated during a given time period or in a given territory, is known as biological productivity.