Name: Date:
Midterm Exam Review Packet
1. Why is Environmental Science considered an interdisciplinary science? What does that mean? What do ecologists study?
2. What are the six levels of organization of ecology?
3. What is an ecological footprint and how is it measured?
4. What is the difference between biotic and abiotic factors? Give an example of each.
5. What is the difference between niche and a habitat?
6. What organisms are always at the beginning of a food chain? What percent energy moves on to the next trophic level?
7. What is biodiversity? What are the three types?
8. What is an invasive species? List the typical characteristics invasive species display. Give an example.
9. Describe how each of the four cycles of matter (Water, Carbon, Nitrogen, and Phosphorus) enter and leave the biosphere.
10. What is a keystone species and why are they important? How are the wolves of Yellowstone a keystone species?
11. What is ecological succession? What is the difference between primary and secondary?
12. What is a pioneer species? What is the climax community?
13. What factors determine the population growth rate of any country?
14. What are the three types of population dispersion? Draw an example of each type. List an organism that displays each type of dispersion.
15. What is population density? How is population density calculated?
16. What do survivorship curves show? What are the types of survivorship curves and what organisms display each type?
17. What is exponential growth? Draw an example of what exponential growth looks like on a graph.
18. What is logistic growth? Draw an example of what logistic growth looks like on a graph.
19. What is carrying capacity? What happens as populations approach it?
20. What is a limiting factor? Name the two types and give an example of each.
21. How does competition affect the size of a population? What happens to competition as a species reaches its carrying capacity?
22. Differentiate between the following terms: endangered, threatened, extinction.
23. What are some factors that could contribute to a species becoming endangered?
24. Differentiate between hunting and poaching?
25. What is the difference between regulated hunting and unregulated hunting? What can each cause?
26. What is the purpose of the endangered species act?
27. What are the characteristics of an old-growth forest?
28. Differentiate between the logging practices of clear cutting and selective cutting. List the advantages and disadvantage of each.
29. What is a company’s point of view of logging? What about ecologists? List at least three differences.
30. How does deforestation affect an ecosystem?