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50.102 Ecology and Evolution
Study Guide for Final Exam
You should be familiar with concepts, definitions, and associated elements of the following key questions, phrases and terms.
The test will be much like the second lecture exam where the majority of the questions will be objective and short answer
including definitions. However, you should expect some medium length essay questions. Remember that the final will have an
element of comprehensive material; however the majority of the test will cover material from the last third of the semester. To
study for this, you should look at past study guides. Five percent of the final grade will be based on attendance which was
collected over the course of the semester with the CPS units. Final grades will be posted by unique identifier online soon after
the exam is administered and graded. If you have any questions, call or email me: X4134, [email protected].
1.
2.
Study the first study guide.
Study the second study guide.
New Stuff
3. Define the following terms: Interspecific competition, intraspecific competition, K, r, N, community, population, ecosystem,
predator, victim, density dependent (definition and example), density dependent factors (definition and examples).
4. Compare and contrast the properties of density independent and density dependent factors of population regulation.
5. What is a life history strategy? Construct a table comparing r and K strategists. Can these life history strategies be applied to
multiple organizational levels? (within a population, between populations, between species).
6. When will one life history strategy be favored over the other? What do I mean by “favored”?
7. Define community and community ecology.
8. How did Gause test for competitive exclusion? How did he test for predator-prey population regulation?
9. Gause’s Competitive Exclusion Principal says what?
10. How did Connell test for competition? Hint: Chthalamus and Balanus.
11. Define competition, predation, parasitism, commensalism and mutualism.
12. What is a resource utilization curve (aka tolerance curve). How is it related to a species niche?
13. What is niche specialization?
14. Describe the Snowshoe Hare / Canadian Lynx relationship.
15. This will be an extra credit question – What is the paradox of enrichment?
16. Define alpha (α), beta (β) and gamma (γ) diversity. How are they related to one another?
17. What is species richness? What is Biodiversity?
18. Create a flowchart that helps to explain the factors leading to increases and decreases in local and regional diversity.
19. What is the theory of island biogeography? Who formalized the theory? What is an equilibrium number of species? How is
island size and distance from mainland related to species diversity? How can this theory be applied to conservation biology?
20. Be able to explain how the following factors increase or decrease levels of biodiversity: factors associated with island
biogeography, time, latitude, primary productivity, foliage height or habitat diversity, competition, predation, prey diversity,
disturbance.
21. What is the intermediate disturbance hypothesis?
22. Can predation actually increase species diversity? How?
23. Explain ecological succession. When was ecological succession formalized? What is the difference between primary and
secondary succession? What is a climax community? What is a pioneer species? Do pioneer species facilitate or exclude
successors? What is the modern view of ecological succession?
24. Food webs: define producer, consumer, primary producer, secondary producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer,
detritivores, energy flux, autotroph, heterotroph, carnivore, herbivore, trophic level, Biogeochemical cycling, connectance,
interconnectance.
25. Ecological pyramid (ep). Efficient ep, inefficient ep. Define productivity.
26. Conservation Biology. What are the properties of conservation biology?
27. What are some ethical principals associated with the discipline?
28. How is genetic diversity related to conservation biology? What is Fisher’s Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection?
What is Darwin’s Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection?
29. Give some examples of a keystone species. How about a keystone resource? Define each.
30. What is an extinction cascade?
31. Construct a table of the economic values of an ecosystem. Define, direct use value, indirect use value, option value,
existence value, “willingness to pay”, intrinsic value.
32. Use a purely economic argument for maintaining an intact ecosystem rather than developing the area into housing or a new
highway.
33. This would make a good matching section for the test – identify the following people with the succeeding list of terms,
ideals, ideas, ethics and concepts: Gifford Pinchot, Aldo Leopold, John Muir, Bob Marshall, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Mike Soule’, utilitarian conservation, anthropocentrism, intrinsic values, spiritual values, quasi-religion,
transcendentalism.
34. Define the following: Mass extinction, extinct in the wild, ecologically extinct, threatened and endangered, locally
extirpated.
35. Discuss some of the causes of declines in species population sizes and increases in species extinction rates. What is the main
cause of the 6th mass extinction event? Review question #19 at the back of chapter 50.
36. Give some examples of exotic species and pollution.
37. Discuss some of the methods used for conservation of biodiversity. Gap analysis, population viability analysis, Restoration
ecology.