APES Final Exam

Question 1

a relationship between individuals of two species in which one species obtains food or other benefits from the other without either harming or benefiting the latter.

Answer 1

Commensalism

Question 2

Who benefits from commensalism?

Answer 2

The commensal—the species that benefits from the association—may obtain nutrients, shelter, support, or locomotion from the host species, which is unaffected.

Question 3

a land region on the earth’s surface covered by biological communities that group under the same climatic patterns like rainfall and temperature.

Answer 3

Terrestrial Biome

Question 4

Where are terrestrial biomes located?

Answer 4

in a region that need not be located in proximity but span across the earth. An example of a terrestrial ecosystem is tropical forests.

Question 5

What is resource partitioning?

Answer 5

when different organisms within one ecosystem split up an area so that they will not compete for the same resources and when those organisms have a special adaptation. In any environment, organisms compete for scarce and limited resources.

Question 6

light energy to chemical energy in photosynthesis

Answer 6

Light energy is converted to chemical energy when a photochemically excited special chlorophyll molecule of the photosynthetic reaction center loses an electron, undergoing an oxidation reaction.

Question 7

ecosystem services

Answer 7

clean air and water, fertile soil for crop production, pollination, and flood control.

Question 8

what causes mortality in migratory species ?

Answer 8

Migra- tory journeys may be associated with enhanced risks of predation, diseases, exhaustion, food shortage at critical stopover sites and mass mortality (often associated with adverse weather and wind conditions), which may have at least short-term effects on population sizes

Question 9

secondary succession characteristics

Answer 9

Secondary succession is the ecological succession that occurs after the initial succession has been disrupted and some plants and animals still exist. It is usually faster than primary succession as soil is already present, and seeds, roots, and the underground vegetative organs of plants may still survive in the soil.

Question 10

population bottleneck

Answer 10

A population bottleneck is an event that drastically reduces the size of a population. The bottleneck may be caused by various events, such as an environmental disaster, the hunting of a species to the point of extinction, or habitat destruction that results in the deaths of organisms.

Question 11

carrying capacity

Answer 11

maximum population of a particular species that a given habitat can support over a given period.

Question 12

density dependent limiting factors

Answer 12

Density-dependent factors include disease, competition, and predation. Density-dependent factors can have either a positive or a negative correlation to population size.

Question 13

density independent limiting factors

Answer 13

Density independent factors are factors that will affect the size of a population regardless of it’s density. such as natural disasters and the weather. It operates in both large and small populations and is not based on population density. .

Question 14

causes of decline in global human fertility

Question 15

rule of 70

Answer 15

The rule of 70 states that if a population has a r% annual growth rate, then the number of years it will take for the population to double can be found by dividing 70 by r. This rule can also be used to determine the annual growth rate of a given population if we know the doubling time of the population.

Question 16

La Nina

Answer 16

When a La Niña occurs, it is a cooling of the Pacific Ocean between Papua New Guinea and South America, essentially the opposite of an El Niño. The formation of a La Niña begins when the trade winds get stronger, pushing warm coastal water further away from the South American coastline.

Question 17

Tragedy of the commons

Answer 17

the idea that individuals do not view a resource as a common good and will exploit it to the best of their ability, which, when done by everybody, depletes the resource.

Question 18

sustainable agriculture and its characteristics

Answer 18

emphasizes the ability to continue agriculture on a given piece of land indefinitely through conservation and soil improvement.

Question 19

how to reduce urban run off

Answer 19

planting trees and building buildings up (taller) and not out taking up more area on a streetblock will reduce urban runoff . Green infrastructure techniques, such as green roofs and rain gardens , can help to reduce the volume of runoff and improve the quality of the water that is discharged into the environment.

Question 20

advantages of clearcutting

Answer 20

gives sunlight to younger trees;
improves forest health;
regenerates species that do not tolerate shade, improves seeding and sprouting;
supplies timber for multiple purposes;
decreases forest soil disturbance with logging machinery as the trees are cut at once;

Question 21

disadvantages of clear cutting

Answer 21

Clear-cutting often contributes to reductions in root strength and soil water-holding capacity, due to soil compaction and reduced transpiration. Moreover, the removal of the forest cover exposes the soil surface to heavy precipitation and large variations in temperature.

Question 22

green revolution

Answer 22

a period of technology transfer initiatives that saw greatly increased crop yields. These changes in agriculture began in developed countries in the early 20th century and spread globally till the late 1980s.

Question 23

how to reduce soil erosion

Answer 23

Maintaining a healthy, perennial plant cover. Mulching. Planting a cover crop – such as winter rye in vegetable gardens. Includes annual grasses, small grains, legumes and other types of vegetation planted to provide a temporary vegetative cover.

Question 24

types of mining and their pros and cons

Answer 24

surface mining-Is where materials lying over a deposit are removed to expose the resources for processing

open pit mining-Is where machines dig very large holes a remove metal ores as well as sand, gravel and stone

strip mining-Is a tactic that is useful and economical for extracting mineral deposits that lie in large horizontal beds close to the Earth’s surface

contour strip mining-Is used mainly to mine coal on mountainous terrain which involves power shovels and bulldozers cutting series of terraces into the hills

mountain top mining-Is where machines with huge buckets called draglines are used to remove the top of a mountain and expose the seams of coal which are then removed

subsurface mining-Is the removal of deep deposits of minerals through the usage of tunnels and shafts

Question 25

phosphourous cycling

Answer 25

the biogeochemical cycle that describes the transformation and translocation of phosphorus in soil, water, and living and dead organic material.

Question 26

axis of rotation of the earth and how it affects solar radiation

Answer 26

The greater Earth’s axial tilt angle, the more extreme our seasons are, as each hemisphere receives more solar radiation during its summer, when the hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun, and less during winter, when it is tilted away

Question 27

type 1 survivorship

Answer 27

populations whose organisms tend to survive beyond their young and middle-ages and die when they become elderly. These organisms usually have small numbers of offspring and provide lots of parental care to make sure those offspring survive.

Question 28

specialists vs generalists

Answer 28

A generalist species is able to thrive in a wide variety of environmental conditions and can make use of a variety of different resources . A specialist species can thrive only in a narrow range of environmental conditions or has a limited diet.

Question 29

soil triangle- determine what soil type is

Answer 29

A soil texture triangle is used to classify the texture class of a soil. The sides of the soil texture triangle are scaled for the percentages of sand, silt, and clay. Soil Texture is one of the first things determined when a soil is examined.

Question 30

water infiltration

Answer 30

the process by which water on the ground surface enters the soil. Infiltration rate in soil science is a measure of the rate at which soil is able to absorb rainfall or irrigation. It is measured in inches per hour or millimeters per hour.

Question 31

ozone hole and when it reaches maximum area- season and month

Answer 31

From August to October, the ozone hole increases in size – reaching a maximum between mid-September and mid-October.