Ecology Test 1 Chapter 1

Question 1

What is Ecology?

Answer 1

the study of interactions among organisms and between organisms and their environment.

Question 2

Biotic meaning

Answer 2

Interactions among living organisms

Question 3

Abiotic meaning

Answer 3

Interactions between organisms and their physical environment

Question 4

What is environmental Science?

Answer 4

the application of ecology to real world problems

Question 5

What is Organismal Ecology?

Answer 5

Can be divided into 3 main subdisciplines: evolutionary ecology, behavioral ecology, and physiological ecology

Question 6

What is evolutionary ecology?

Answer 6

Considers how organisms have evolved to adapt to their environment through interactions with individuals, populations, and other species

Question 7

What is behavioral ecology?

Answer 7

Focuses on how the behavior of an individual organism contributes to its survival and reproductive success, which in turn affects the abundance of a population

Question 8

What is physiological ecology?

Answer 8

investigates how organisms are physiologically adapted to their environment and how the environment impacts the distribution of species

Question 9

What is population ecology?

Answer 9

focuses on population groups of interbreeding individuals that occur in the same place at the same time

Question 10

What is the primary goal of population ecology?

Answer 10

to understand factors that affect a population’s growth and determine its size and denisty

Question 11

What does physiological ecology examine?

Answer 11

the effects of temperature, water, nutrients availability, and other physical factors on the distribution and abundance of species

Question 12

What is a community and some examples of it?

Answer 12

the assemblage of many populations that live in the same place at the same time ; small pond communities, tropical rain forests.

Question 13

What are biomes and some examples?

Answer 13

the largest scales of communities ; terrestrial, coastal, aquatic biomes

Question 14

What is a process succession?

Answer 14

Species composition changes in a predictable way over time and in particular after a disturbance such as fire or a flood

Question 15

What is an ecosystem and what does it deal with?

Answer 15

living biotic community and its nonliving abiotic environment; deals with the flow of energy and the cycling of nutrients among organisms within a community and between organisms and the environment

Question 16

What is extinction?

Answer 16

the process by which species die out, has been a natural phenomenon

Question 17

What is the biodiversity crisis?

Answer 17

often used to describe this elevated loss of species

Question 18

What is Conservation biology?

Answer 18

studies how to protect the biological diversity of life at all levels

Question 19

What are some examples for habitat destruction?

Answer 19

deforestation, conversion of habitat to agricultural land, urbanization, the draining of swamps, strip mining, quarrying dam construction, river channelization, and many other forms of land modification

Question 20

What is deforestation?

Answer 20

the conversion of forested areas to nonforested land, is the prime cause of the extinction of species

Question 21

What are invasive species?

Answer 21

transported, some introduced species spreading naturally and outcompeting native species for space and resources

Question 22

What has direct exploitation caused?

Answer 22

particularly the hunting of animals has been the cause of many extinctions in the past

Question 23

Five stage process of the scientific method in biology?

Answer 23

Observation, hypothesis formation, hypothesis testing, data analysis, acceptance or rejection of the hypothesis

Question 24

Elaborate on hypothesis?

Answer 24

Hypothesis is never really proven, we conduct testing and fail to disprove a hypothesis

Question 25

Interactions among organisms are called ?

Answer 25

Biotic interactions

Question 26

The organisms most threatened with extinction are believed to be?
Birds, amphibians, mammals, fish, and reptiles

Answer 26

amphibians

Question 27

Community ecology focuses on?

Answer 27

The factors that influence the number of species in a given area

Question 28

The small vertical bars around graphical means are usually called?

Answer 28

Standard deviations or standard errors

Question 29

Which is not an example of habitat loss?
Deforestation, agriculture, urbanization, draining of wetlands, overharvesting

Answer 29

Overharvesting

Question 30

The main elements of global change are

Answer 30

habitat destruction, introduced species, direct exploitation, pollution

Question 31

The passenger pigeon once the most common bird in North America was driven to extinction by?

Answer 31

Overharvesting

Question 32

E.O Wilson has referred to the threats to life on Earth with the acronym:

Answer 32

HIPPO

Question 33

Many frogs in Central America are threatened by extinction from?

Answer 33

a fungus

Question 34

Studies of the flow of energy and nutrients among organisms is the realm of which branch of ecology?

Answer 34

Ecosystems