Download General Review for the Quiz

General Review for the Unit Section of the Final
1. Ecologists study the interactions between _____________ and their _____________.
They are concerned with the ________________ and ________________ of species
in varying environments.
2. Which level of ecology do the ecologists below study?
a. I study the living factors and non-living factors that affect species.
b. I study groups of one species that interbreed.
c. I study the characteristics of individuals, such as their behaviors.
d. I study multiple species in a certain area.
3. The biosphere is a thin layer of earth where _________________________________.
4. Ecologists study factors that affect species. Floods, precipitation and climate are
examples of (abiotic/biotic) factors. Humans and other species are examples of
(abiotic/biotic) factors.
5. Species that are purposefully or unintentionally brought to a new area by humans are
called _____________________________. These species are a (abiotic/biotic) factor.
How might these negatively impact native species? ___________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
6. What is temperature in different biomes affected by? What does it vary by? ________
_____________________________________________________________________
7. The amount of sunlight on a particular biome and its season is determined by ______
____________________________. Where is there no variation in sunlight or season?
Why? _______________________________________________________________
8. What type of climate does the equator have? What type of climate do the areas
around the equator have? What general abiotic factor affects the precipitation to cause
this variance in climate? What other factors affect precipitation? _________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
9. Aquatic biomes are defined by five things: _________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
10. A fish named Kreather swims through a place of important primary producers (such
as dinoflagellates) that provides protection and shelter for it and its friends. Little
does Kreather know that his habitat also feeds millions of people per year and
protects the coasts from huge waves. Kreather lives in the _____________________.
Where would he find the most chemosynthetic primary producers? _______________
11. Kreather is losing places to live because his habitat is declining at a fast rate. What
are some things that are destroying his habitat? ______________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
12. How are wetlands important to us? ________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
13. Kreather’s distant cousin Creather lives in a place of salinity less than the ocean but
more than freshwater. He probably lives in a(n) ______________________________.
Why is the water this way? ______________________________________________
Creather’s habitat is the site for __________________________________________.
14. What is Iowa’s main (natural) terrestrial biome? Prairie, a.k.a. __________________
______________________. There are lots of non-woody plants. What things keep
woody plants from being successful? ______________________________________
15. Why is it that farmers exploit the soil of our prairies? _________________________
Why is the soil that way? ________________________________________________
16. Kreather’s other distant cousin Bob swims in the beginning part of a river, known as
the ________________. The water is generally cool and has high oxygen levels,
meaning it is (oligotrophic/eutrophic). After swimming through the middle reaches,
Bob comes to the ________________________ of the river and there is a lot of
sedimentation. The sediment holds decaying things in water, meaning there is less
oxygen and thus it is (oligotrophic/eutrophic).
17. What are the three ways that humans have impacted Iowa’s rivers? ______________
_____________________________________________________________________
How does these affect this aquatic biome and why do these affects happen? ________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
18. What are the 5 population attributes that we study? ___________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
19. Kelly Scientist wants to count the population size of buffalo. She attempts a census,
but finds it near impossible to count each one (could YOU tell them apart?). She
could _______________________________________________________________.
20. The _______________ of a species—or number of individuals per unit area—affects
what? What are some specific examples? How would a high density affect these?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
21. Kelly notices that buffalo exist in clumped distributions. What does this suggest about
the buffalo? They have (positive/neutral/negative) interactions, such as____________
_____________________________________________________________________
22. Kelly notices that wild turkeys exist in uniform distributions. What does this suggest
about them? They have (positive/neutral/negative) interactions, such as____________
_____________________________________________________________________
23. Kelly notices that weeds exist in random distributions. What does this suggest about
the weeds? They have (positive/neutral/negative) interactions, such as_____________
_____________________________________________________________________
24. Demography studies the factors that affect __________________________________.
One particular factor is the sex ratio of a population. For humans, the
(secondary/primary) sex ratio is 50:50 to indicate the number of (newborn/adult) girls
to guys. The (secondary/primary) sex ratio is not 50:50 due to many factors affecting
the (newborn/adult) population.
25. Another factor of demography is age structure. Kelly notices that for a prairie beetle
all adults die before the next generation of beetles are born, demonstrating
_______________________ generations. For a prairie plant, many different ages of
plants exist at one time, demonstrating _______________________ generations.
26. Looking at the graphs that show different
populations, which one has the highest
growth? The least? How do you know?
A
B
C
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
27. Joe Ecologist is studying what factors affect population growth. What is an important
equation that describes this? __________________________________
28. What are life history characteristics and why do we study them? ______________
__________________________________________________________________
29. Joe is comparing bacteria to humans by using the characteristics that describe birth
rates. In what four ways might he compare them? Which species has a higher
population growth, and how do you know? _________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
30. Joe studies bacteria and makes a graph of the number of bacteria that die over time.
What is this type of graph called? __________________________________ What
factor of the equation does this describe? ___________________________ What are
the 3 types possible, and how do we describe what’s happening in the population for
each one? _____________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
31. Joe notices that environmental factors regulate population growth. Factors that are
abiotic, such as the weather, floods and earthquakes, are considered ___________
_____________, whereas factors such as limited resources, diseases and predators are
_____________________. (Think of one of the five attributes of populations!)
32. Imagine that a herd of rabbits are dumped on an island with unlimited resources that
is unfilled by other organisms. What type of growth will the rabbits have?
___________________ Now imagine the island does have only limited resources.
This island now has a ___________________ that would cause the rabbits to have
_____________________ growth. When the rabbits on the island reach carrying
capacity, will they stay at that exact size forever? What is it called when they don’t?
____________________________________________________________
33. What does “r” represent? What types of things affect the maximum “r” of a species?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
34. What type of population growth do humans experience? Is our carrying capacity
known? What must eventually happen to our population? How would that happen?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
35. One way of estimating humans’ carrying capacity is called an ________________
__________________. How is this calculated? ___________________________
__________________________________________________________________
36. T or F: A community is an assemblage of a species in one area that live together and
interact.
37. When studying the structure of a community, ecologists are concerned with the
________________ and ________________ of each species in an environment.
38. What are the four interspecific interactions we studied? How are both species
impacted (+/-/0)? Which interactions describe interdependent relationships (called
symbioses)? __________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________ Match the interactions with the examples below.
a. Anacondas eat gazelles for breakfast.
b. Mychorrizae on plants increase surface area of roots while getting some food
from the plants.
c. Monkeys and gorillas eat the same limited amount of bananas.
d. Egrets rest on water buffalo, eating bugs the buffalo kick up from the grass. (The
buffalo aren’t affected by the egrets whatsoever.)
39. What is biomass? ______________________________________________________
40. A polar bear lives in the arctic, eats seals and only eats them 3 months of the year.
What was just described? ________________________________________________
41. Is it possible for two species to use the exact same resources at the exact same time
and place and co-exist? What principle says yes/no? __________________________
____________________ Two species cannot occupy the same _________________.
42. Two species of anoles live different areas of orange trees. One anole species is
removed and the other species lives in the entirety of the tree. What does this
represent? What are the fundamental and realized niches? ______________________
_____________________________________________________________________
43. “Gosh there are a lot of species!” said Emily. “How could this be?” Tell Emily what
the four reasons are for so many species co-existing. How does each allow this? ____
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
44. How does natural selection work? What does it create in species affected by
predation? ____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
45. “Red on black, you’re OK Jack. Red on yellow you’re a dead fellow,” is a phrase that
describes the differences between the poisonous coral snake and the harmless king
snake. What type of mimicry does the king snake use to look like the coral snake?
What is the other type of mimicry found in nature? ___________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
46. Joe Ecologist is studying what controls community structure. He concludes that
________________ and __________________ are the key processes affecting
community structure.
47. To truly understand this, Joe studies the coral reef. He removes a species of squid that
has the highest biomass in the area, is the most abundant. He finds that some species
that once depended on squids go extinct, and others thrive now that the competition is
gone. The squids were most likely a _______________________________________.
48. Joe then removes mussels. Although they’re not particularly abundant, when removed
the biodiversity of the area decreases because the mussels no longer eat the masses of
phytoplankton in the area. Since this species had such an important role in the niche,
it is probably a ________________________________________________________.
49. What else should Joe look at to study the structure of the above community? Describe
the various levels of this characteristic and why there are limits to the amount of
energy moved between the various levels. __________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
50. What is the First Law of Thermodynamics and how does it apply to ecosystems? The
Second Law? _________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
51. Draw a diagram from solar energy to secondary consumers and include detrituseating organisms. What is the max number of links organisms can have?
52. When writing the amount of energy transferred between those levels, does it
decrease? Why or why not? In the graphs in class, what was the shape of the
transferred amounts of energy? ___________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
53. ___________________ is the amount of chemical energy that is produced and stored
by autotrophs that is available for consumption, a.k.a. the total biomass of autotrophs.
54. Secondary production and NPP seem similar at first glance, but how does secondary
production differ? ______________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
Will all of the herbivore’s food be digested and used in their body? ______________
55. Why do we study the water cycle? What is it driven by? How does it influence an
ecosystem? ___________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
56. Why do we study the carbon cycle? The carbon cycle involves various reservoirs.
How would you classify each reservoir? What’s an example of each? _____________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
57. What is the greenhouse effect? Is it a natural tendency? What’s the trend in
temperature now and how does the greenhouse effect affect that? ________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________