Download Study Questions - Geocycles, communities, populations

Study Questions - Geocycles, communities, populations
1. What is ecology? How is it different than environmentalism?
2. Define these levels of biological organization that ecologists study: population,
community, ecosystem, biosphere.
3. Describe ways that population sizes are measured or estimated.
4. Describe three dispersion patterns of populations and explain why these patterns
occur.
5. What is exponential growth of populations? What shape does this growth curve often
take? Be able to draw, label, and explain a graph of exponential growth.
6. What is logistic growth? What does a graph of this type of growth look like? Be able
to draw, label, and explain a graph of this type.
7. What is carrying capacity? What role does it play in logistic growth?
8. What are examples of factors that can limit population size?
9. What does r represent in these two growth models? What factors can affect r?
10. What type of growth is shown by human populations? What are the limiting factors?
11. Define the term ecological footprint. How is it related to carrying capacity?
12. What do historians think happened on Easter Island? What message does this tell us
about today’s world?
13. Define niche and habitat. Understand the difference between these terms.
14. List and describe 4 types of interactions among species in a community.
For each type, who benefits and who is harmed?
15. What is the competitive exclusion principle? What are the two possible outcomes?
16. How does the barnacle experiment illustrate these outcomes?
17. How are parasitism and predation alike? How do they differ?
18 What is a keystone species? How do they maintain community structure?
19. Name 3 strategies that prey have evolved to avoid predators.
20. Define coevolution and describe two examples.
21. What is mimicry? What advantage is conferred upon a mimicking species?
22. Define mutualism and commensalism and describe an example of each relationship.
23. Explain how energy moves through an ecosystem. How does it enter? How does it
leave?
24. Explain the analogy of Earth to a terrarium.
25. Define these terms: trophic level, producer, consumer, detritivore.
26. Why are there fewer tertiary consumers than primary consumers?
27. What is biological magnification? How are food webs involved? Describe an
example of biological magnification.
28. What is an abiotic reservoir? What role does it have in an ecosystem?
29. Draw a diagram of the water cycle, labeling the major pathways of water movement.
What is the abiotic reservoir for water?
30. Which part of this cycle is disrupted when rain forest is cut down? How else do
humans affect this cycle?
31. Describe the carbon cycle. Where is the abiotic reservoir for carbon? What cellular
process returns carbon to this reservoir? What do producers do in the carbon cycle?
32. What is thought to be the cause of global warming? Explain in terms of the carbon
cycle.
33. Diagram the nitrogen cycle and label major pathways. What roles do
microorganisms have?
34. What impact do humans have on this cycle?
35. Explain the process of eutrophication and its effect on aquatic life.
36. What is “tragedy of the commons”?
37. Explain Hawkins’ idea of “natural capital”.