BISC 003: Exam #1 Study Guide
Exam #1 Study Guide:
1)When did the current human population explosion begin, and in which countries is it growing fastest (North or South)? How does per capita resource demand differ between North and South countries?
2)Sustained health of marine, freshwater, agricultural, forest and grasslands is important for humans. Why?
3)Explain what the scientific community believes to be the cause of the strong relationship between increasing average global temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide. What is the Industrial Revolution and when did it begin?
4)Maintaining biodiversity is important because ….
5)Know the definition and relationship between sustainability, stewardship and sound science.
6)Does sustainability mean the same for all disciplines (economics, sociology, ecology)?
7)What issues of justice and equity need consideration for stewardship. Be able to recognize an example of environmental racism.
8)Who was John Muir? How was Rachel Carson? Compare Environmentalism and Wise-Use Movement ideology, i.e. their perspective of the natural world and mans role in it.
9)Know the scientific method. What meant by an experimental control.
10)Recognize when the terms theory, concept and natural law are properly used.
11)What situations favor the possibility of a scientific controversy?
12)Contrast sound science and junk science.
13)Look over the Easter Island story to see how man can exceed the carrying capacity of his environment, which results in ecosystem degradation and population crash (not without social strife and brutal civil war first).
14) What are ecosystems and what three factors determine the type of terrestrial (land) ecosystems?
15)What’s an ecotone and transitional ecosystem? Why more biodiversity their?
16) Look over these six major terrestrial (land) biome types, temperate deciduous forest biome, grassland biomes, desert biomes, tropical rain forest, coniferous forest biome, tundra. Know approximately where these are located across North and South America.
17)Environmental factors include conditions and resources. What are some abiotic conditions organisms must be able to tolerate in order to survive? Know what is meant by tolerance limits, stress conditions and optimum conditions.
18)Be able to distinguish conditions and resources for plants.
19)Realize that climate is characterized by average annual temperature and precipitation rather than weather, which varies day to day and with seasons. How do shifts in climate (temperature vs precipitation) change biomes. When forest, desert, tundra?
20)Recognize that altitude increases mimic climate changes see moving to higher latitude, i.e. towards the poles. For example, the high alpine tundra is like the arctic tundra.
21)Know your trophic structure and trophic levels.
22)What is the function of decomposers and detritus feeders?
23)Who are autotrophs versus heterotrophs? Define each term.
24)Know consumer types and important consumer relationships.
25)Why does the amount of energy and biomass in an ecosystem decrease with higher trophic levels, like a pyramid starting with a wide base and narrowing to a pointed top?
26)What’s the difference between a food chain and a food web. Do all organisms always feed on the same trophic level?
27)We assumed in our trophic level activity that herbivores had an ecological efficiency of 10%, is this actually seen among different herbivores? Can a person with a carnivorous diet increase their ecological efficiency by only changing the meat type?
28)From the ecological perspective, who is a more efficient consumer a vegetarian or a fish eater?
29)Be able to recognize examples of mutualism.
30)What factors help limit interspecific competition? What’s a niche? What’s a habitat?
31)Energy flows and nutrients cycle; think about how these core concepts of ecosystem function relate to the first two principles of ecosystem sustainability.
32)What are the first two principles of ecosystem sustainability? How does the human system violate these principles; think about burning fossil fuels and landfills for solid waste.
33)What properties of matter are similar, and which properties are unique to each?
34) Know energy types and the two laws of thermodynamics. Be able to recognize energy transformation scenarios by type. Don’t forget heat is lost with each energy transformation!
35)What is entropy? Must energy be added to reaction or process if it is to become more complex and organized? For examples, your bedroom or my office.
36)Know respiration and photosynthesis reactions in terms of chemicals involved and energy release or inputs required. Plant and Animals do which of these?
37)What are sources of inorganic carbon (carbon dioxide and bicarbonate) and where are they found?
38)How can carbon get stored in sediments over millions of years – in what form (organic or inorganic)? How has man released this stored carbon?
39)Who does deforestation and fires both impact the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide?
40)Which microbial process is the only means of getting atmospheric N-gas (N2) into biomass?
41) Microbes also mineralize organic nitrogen to ammonia, perform nitrification of ammonia to nitrate, and others perform denitrification of nitrate back to N-gas which escapes the ecosystem to the atmosphere.
42)Understand population equilibrium, the factors contributing to biotic potential and environmental resistance, and dynamic balance.
43)How can the two very different reproductive strategies both work? Which has more efficient recruitment?
44)Why can a J-curve happen – what conditions (or lack of) needs to exist? What are three possible aftermaths of a J-curve crash? Why the crash?
45)What happens to the ecosystem when a population exceeds its carrying capacity? What if the population is below its critical number?
46)Why does an S-curve happen; is this a more sustainable situation than a J-curve?
47) Be able to recognize environmental resistance factors as either population density-dependent or population density independent.
48)Natural enemies are parasites and predators. How do predator and prey population densities change overtime in the absence of other environmental resistance factors (Isle Royale example)?
49)What’s overgrazing? What’s the third principle of sustainable ecosystems?
50)How do plants deal with competition between species (interspecific) so to maintain higher biodiversity? Know examples and meaning for mutualism, microclimate, adaptations, and balanced herbivory.
Exam #1: Complete Vocabulary List:
BISC 003: Exam #1 Study Guide
Developing countries(South),
industrialized countries(North),
per capita resource demand,
habitat alteration,
pollution,
global climate change
greenhouse gas
biodiversity,
sustainability,
stewardship,
Environmentalism
“wise-use” movement
sound science,
sustainable yields,
sustainable development,
equity,
environmental racism,
environmental movement,
scientific method, facts,
atomic theory,
hypothesis,
theory,
naturallaws,
instruments,
scientific community,
junk science
Biota (biotic community),
abiotic,
species,
population,
ecosystem,
ecology,
ecologist,
ecotone,
landscape,
biosphere,
trophic structure,
photosynthesis,
primary producers,
autotrophs,
heterotrophs,
consumers,
detritus,
detritus feeders,
decomposers,
primary consumers,
herbivores,
secondaryconsumers,
carnivores,
omnivores,
predator,
predator-prey,
parasites,
host-parasite,
pathogens (infectious disease),
food chain,
food web,
trophic levels,
biomass,
biomasspyramid,
mutualistic symbiosis (mutualism),
habitat,
ecological niche,
abiotic factors,
conditions and resources,
optimum,
rangeof tolerance,
limits of tolerance,
zones of stress,
temperatedeciduous forest biome,
grassland biomes,
desert biomes,
tropical rain forest,
coniferous forest biome,
Neolithic Revolution
Industrial Revolution
matter,
inorganic matter,
organic matter,
energy,
kinetic energy,
potentialenergy,
chemical energy,
calorie,
the law of conservation of energy,
the first law of thermodynamics,
second law ofthermodynamics,
entropy,
cell respiration,
first basic principle of ecosystem sustainability,
second basic principle of ecosystem sustainability ,
fossil fuel,
deforestation,
industrial nitrogen fixation,
biological nitrogen fixation,
nitrification,
denitrification
Population equilibrium,
biotic potential,
recruitment,
reproductive strategies,
exponential increase,
populationexplosion,
environmental resistance,
replacement level,
carrying capacity,
dynamic balance,
population density,
critical number,
threatened species,
endangered species,
parasitic organisms,
natural enemies,
overgrazing,
third basic principle of ecosystem sustainability,
interspecific competition,
epiphytes,
microclimate,
balanced herbivory,
territoriality,
intraspecific competition