Download Chapter 50: Study Questions

Chapter 50: Study Questions
1. What are the differences between abiotic and biotic factors in the environment?
Give examples of each.
2. How can biotic factors change the environment? Give examples.
3. What is the difference between an endotherm and an ectotherm?
4. Why is sunlight so important?
5. How does light influence the life cycle of plants and animals?
6. How does wind influence environmental conditions?
7. How do rocks and soil influence ecological cycles?
8. What are the two major factors that determine climate?
9. Why aren’t biomes clearly distinguished from one another?
10. How does the shape of the earth influence the effects of solar radiation? See
figure 50.10.
11. If the earth is closer to the sun in the winter, why is it colder during the winter
months?
12. What are the tropics and where are they found?
13. Explain the global movement of air and how this leads to desert regions. See
Figure 50.10.
14. How is the formation of an arid desert region similar to “rain shadows” on high
elevation mountains?
15. How do bodies of water affect climate?
16. Explain “seasonal turnover” and its role in nutrient cycling and the health of a
body of water.
17. What is a microclimate? How are they formed? How can these influence the
species that inhabit the area? Give examples.
18. What is the difference between oligotrophic and eutrophic lakes? What is a
mesotrophic lake? How does an oligotrophic lake become a eutrophic lake? How
can human activities increase this process?
19. What is a wetland and why are they ecologically important?
20. What is an estuary? How can these pose difficulties for the organisms that live
there?
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CHAPTER 51: Behavioral Ecology
What is an innate behavior? Give an example.
What is a fixed action pattern? A sign stimulus? How do they operate? Give an
example.
What is the cost/benefit analysis of foraging behavior? Explain the behavior of
sunfish foraging.
What is learning and how does it differ from maturation? Give examples of each.
What is habituation? Give two examples.
Ducks following a man like he’s their mother. Explain imprinting and sensitive
period with this example.
Differentiate between associative learning, classical conditioning and operant
conditioning. Give examples.
What is a cognitive map?
9. Differentiate between kinesis and taxis? Give examples of each.
10. **What is the purpose of an injury-feigning display? What kind of social behavior
is this?
11. What is agonistic behavior? What is the role of ritual in agonistic behavior?
12. **Explain the role of dominance hierarchies in social organizations. How does
this relate to the teenage interaction and high school social structures?
13. What is the purpose of courtship?
14. How is parental investment balanced with the number of offspring?
15. What is the role of secondary sex characteristics?
16. **What is a lek? Do these exist in human societies?
17. What are the different types of mating systems? How do the different systems
confer different benefits to individuals?
18. How does the method of communication reflect an animal’s lifestyle?
19. (Geek alert) In the movie the Wrath of Khan , Spock said, “The good of the many
outweighs the good of the few or the one.” Explain this in terms of altruism.
20. How is altruism affected by inclusive fitness and the coefficient of relatedness?
Ch 52 Study Questions
Population Ecology
Chapter 52:
1. Differentiate between density and dispersion.
2. Explain the three main patterns of dispersion and why they occur. Give examples.
3. How is an age structure generated? Describe in terms of birthrate (fecundity),
death rate and generation time.
4. What is a survivorship curve? What are the three basic patterns? Why do they
occur in reference to reproductive strategies? Give examples.
5. Semelparity and iteroparity. Define, describe and give examples.
6. What are the “trade-offs” for different life history patterns?
7. What is the basic equation for population growth?
8. What is ZPG? What does it mean?
9. Differentiate between exponential growth and logistic growth.
10. What is the carrying capacity of the environment?
11. Differentiate between K-selected populations and r-selected populations.
12. Give three examples of density dependent and density independent limiting
factors.
13. What is interspecific and intraspecific competition?
14. Explain the differences between the three age structures on 1154
15. What is an “ecological footprint”?.
16. Explain the difference between the red, blue and black dots in Figure 52.27 on
page 1156. What do they mean in terms of the ecological footprint?
CHAPTER 53 Study Questions
Chapter 53: Pages 1107 – 1128.
1. Differentiate “species richness” from “relative abundance”. How do they relate to
“species diversity”?
2. What is meant by “coevolution”? Give an example.
3. What are the different ways plants can defend themselves from herbivores?
4. Define and provide examples: cryptic coloration, mobbing, aposematic coloration,
mimicry, Batesian mimicry, Mullerian mimicry, parasitism (and its variations)
5. What is the difference between interference and exploitive competition?
6. What is the competitive exclusion principle?
7. Explain figure 53.10 on 1115.
8. What is a niche? (pronounced nitch, not neesh) How does a fundamental niche
differ from a realized niche?
9. What is resource partitioning? Why is this good for species? Give examples.
10. Compare and contrast: parasitism, commensalisms and mutualism.
11. What is the role of a keystone predator?
12. Kudzu is an “exotic species”. Why are these typically bad?
13. What is succession? Primary vs. secondary?
Chapter 54 Study Questions
Ecosystems: Pgs. 1184 - 1206
1. What is a trophic structure and a trophic level?
2. How does a food chain differ from a food web? Which is a more accurate
depiction of ecological relationships? Why?
3. Why are detrivores essential to nutrient cycles?
4. Differentiate between gross primary productivity and net primary productivity.
5. What is biomass? How is it different from standing crop biomass?
6. What happens to the energy captured by the primary producers as it moves from
one trophic level to another? Why does this occur?
7. How is this change reflected in the change in biomass as you move up the levels?
8. What are the major nutrient cycles on the earth? What is the general pattern?
9. Explain the water cycle.
10 - 12. Explain the carbon cycle. What is the role of photosynthesis and cellular
respiration? What is meant by “carbon fixation”? Write out the formulas for both
photosynthesis and cellular respiration. What do notice about them?
13 – 15. Explain the nitrogen cycle. What is nitrogen fixation? How does this occur?
What is a legume? Why are they important crops for farming? Define and write the chemical
processes for nitrification, denitrification, ammonification. What organisms are primarily
responsible for these reactions?
16. Explain the phosphorous cycle.
17. Explain “accelerated eutrophication”.
18. Explain biomagnification of mercury. That’s why I don’t eat fish. Extra credit:
What fish typically contain the most mercury? What fish have the least?
19. What is the greenhouse effect? What causes it? Is it natural? How does man’s
activity influence it?
20. What is the big deal about the ozone layer?