midterm

Question 1

what other things cause higher deaths than mountain lions (deaths since 1900-2009)?

Answer 1

lightning: 7,910

bees/wasps: 3,549

dogs: 1,254

Question 2

mountain lion appearance

Answer 2

sexual dimorphism

tail 1/3 body length

distinct paw track

Question 3

Mountain lion distribution and abundance

Answer 3

28500 to 15500 ha territories

20,000-50,000 remain across N&S America

Formerly widest New World terrestrial mammal

Question 4

Mountain lion natural history

Answer 4

live up to 10 years

2 cubs per litter, 3 month gestation, 1.5 years to ween

CAs largest carrnivore, apex predator

crepuscular, sit-and-wait predator

Question 5

20 landmark papers in Biodiversity Conservation

Answer 5

Allee 1931

MacArthur and Wilson 1967

Hardin

Schaffer 1981 Restricted

Erlich & Mooney 1983 Restricted

Question 6

Why should we care about DDT?

Answer 6

Persistent chemical in the environment

Health risks still not filly understood

Risks to wildlife ongoing

Question 7

what fish can you not eat off the coast of Los Angeles because of DDT?

Answer 7

White croaker

Question 8

Dispersion

Answer 8

also called variability

measured using:

variance

Standard deviation

standard error

coefficient of variation

Question 9

How do you calculate variance

Answer 9

work out the mean

then for each observation: subtract the mean and square the result

Then work out the average of those squared differences

Question 10

what does a t-test test?

Answer 10

compares the means of two populations or groups of data

asks us the difference between the means large enough, in relation to the natural variation in the biological material, that it is reasonable to conclude that we have estimates of two truly different means

our null hypothesis is that the two means are not different

Question 11

t-test results

Answer 11

t is large = groups are different

t is small = groups are similar

if p=0.05, there is a 5% chance that the means are not truly different

if p<0.05, reject null hypothesis and the two populations are significantly different

Question 12

species richness

Answer 12

number of species in a given area

Question 13

evenness

Answer 13

measures relative abundance of species in a community

the more equally distributed the species in an area, the higher the evenness

Question 14

E_var

Answer 14

values close to 1 gueest very even commnunities

Question 15

Heterogeneity

Answer 15

more sophisticated approach combining both richness & evenness ideas

higher heterogeneous the site, higher the diversity

Question 16

Shannon-Weiner index

Answer 16

can range from 0 to 4.6

a value near zero if practically all abundance is concentrated to one type, and the other rypes are very rare

Question 17

biodiversity

Answer 17

the variety of life in all its forms from genes to ecosystems often interpreted as composition, structure, and/or function

Question 18

Aristotle

Answer 18

1st to use genus (general) and species (specific)

species were immutable

Question 19

Carolus Linnaeus

Answer 19

Binomial Nomenclature

Placing species with similar characteristics into nested hierarchies

Question 20

Georges Cuvier

Answer 20

Paleontology, the study of fossils, was largely developed by French scientist Georges Cuvier

Cuvier made two observations from studying fossils:

• younger fossils were much more similar to living species than older fossils
• between layer of rock, some species disappeared, while other new ones appeared.

Question 21

catastrophism

Answer 21

each boundary line between rock strata represented a natural didaster that wiped out some of the species.

Question 22

gradualism

Answer 22

Geologists Hutton and Lyell theorized that changes in Earth’s surfeace can result from slow continuous actions still operating today

Question 23

Lamarck

Answer 23

organisms can pass on acquired traits to offspring

Question 24

Malthus

Answer 24

is human population grows exponentially while food availablilty grows linearly, then there will be disease, starvation, and war.

Question 25

Charles Darwin

Answer 25

Beagle Voyage 1831-1836

Journals 1838-1843

Coral Reefs 1842

Geology of volcanic isl. 1844

Question 26

Darwin’s observations

Answer 26

life exhibits variation

species are mutable

species may be related to each other in a geographic context

Evolution = a change in gene frequency between generations

Darwin: natural selection = process of adaptation to the environment & eventual phyletic differentiation

Question 27

species concepts

Answer 27

evolution is an ongoing procees - new species arising all the time

no perfect, definitive way of classifying organisms

multiple “species concepts” that provide guidelines

• biological
• morphological
• Genetic

Question 28

causes of reproductive isolation

Answer 28

pysical (geographic)

Environmental (habitats)

Behavioral -

Mechanical - sex organs

physiological - hybrids

Question 29

allopatric speciation

Answer 29

population split by geographic barrier