Units 2-3 Environmental science test answers

Factors that affect the total fertility rate of a human population include which of the following?

1, 2, and 3

If a country has a crude birth rate of 24 per 1,000 and a crude death rate of 8 per 1,000, the natural annual percent increase of its population is

1.6%

Human population growth in 2018 was 1.07%. If this rate of growth remains constant, in what year will the human population double?

2083

Based on the data in the graph, which of the following is closest to the average population growth rate per year from year 4 to year 7 in the rabbit population?

338 rabbits per year

Based on the data in the graph, what is the approximate carrying capacity of the seal population?

7,500

Which stage has both high birth rates and high death rates but low overall population growth in part from high incidences of disease and famine?

A

Which of the following changes would most likely lead to a mammal population exceeding its carrying capacity?

A decrease in the food supply immediately after offspring are born

Which of the following strategies has most aided the nesting success of the piping plovers at Old Orchard Beach?

An increase in educational outreach to beachgoers

The snowshoe hare (a member of the rabbit family) is the primary prey for the canadian lynx. the canadian lynx is a wild feline that is slightly larger than a bobcat. Scientists plan to investigate the relative sizes of the hare and the lynx populations over a 3-year period. Based on predator-prey dynamics, which of the following identifies the hypothesis most likely to be supported by the study?

An increase in the lynx population size will lead to a decrease in the hare population size

Which of the following best describes the evidence the author uses to support the claim that fireworks are one of the biggest threats to the plovers on the fourth of July at Old Orchard Beach?

Audubon employees have found plover nests with chicks that died because parents have been scared away by the noise and light of the fireworks.

Which stage has high birth rates and rapidly decreasing death rates as a result of improved access to healthcare?

B

The Chatham Island robin is a small endangered bird found in scrub forests off the coast of New Zealand. The robin is preyed upon by introduced species such as cats and rats. In 1980, the population decreased to only 5 individuals and every individual today is a descendant of a single female. Which of the following is best illustrated in the decline of the Chatham Island robins?

Bottleneck effect

Based on the data in the age structure diagram, which of the following best describes the population of Country A?

Country A is fairly stable, and birth rates are low.

The diagrams above show the range of tolerance for soil moisture content for two different species of terrestrial invertebrates: Species 1 and Species 2. The ranges represented are for each species where it occurs alone. Soil moisture content is a limiting factor for both species. If populations of both species are placed together in a new location, which of the following diagrams represents the most likely actual (realized) ranges of the species distribution of individuals with respect to soil moisture content after five generations?

D

Which of the following identifies the two factors thought to be the most harmful to biodiversity?

Destruction of habitat and invasion by nonnative species

The data table below shows plant biodiversity of different ecosystems in Glacier National Park. In parts of the park, the glacier is receding leading to succession. Based on the data in the table, which ecosystem is in the earliest stages of succession?

Ecosystem B

Which of the following can be used to assess the biological diversity of an area?

Genetic variation within each species and number of species present.

The graph above shows how seed production in a plant species varied with population density in an unfragmented habitat (site A) and in a fragmented habitat (site B). Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the data?

Habitat fragmentation has more effect on seed production than does population density.

Based on the data in the graph, which environmental factor would have most likely lead to the change in the harbor seal population size from 1980-1990?

Increased availability of food.

The world population growth rate in 2015 is about 1 percent. It it expected to drop to 0.5 percent by 2050, partly because of increased access to birth control in developing nations. Another likely cause for the expected decline is

Increased numbers of women entering the workforce in developing nations

A research team monitoring a local freshwater ecosystem noticed that over the past few years the otter population had declined significantly, while the populations of other species remained fairly constant. After running tests, the research team determined that mercury levels in invertebrates and small fish in the ecosystem were very high. In this ecosystem, what role did the otters occupy?

Indicator species

The many finch species of the Galapagos islands evolved from a single species that immigrated to the islands from the coast of South America. These species differ primarily in beak shape, which is closely related to the type of food each species specializes in eating. Which of the following best explains why each of the finch species on the Galapagos islands evolved to be specialists?

Islands have limited food resources, forcing species to feed on a small range of food items.

Based on the data in the graph, which of the following best identifies the reproductive strategy of harbor seals?

K-selected

Cycads are gymnosperms that were diverse and abundant during the Mesozoic era. Extant species of cycads share many traits with those from the Mesozoic era. Cycads bear cones, are long lived with slow growth rates, show late reproductive maturity, and have very few offspring. Based on this description, the cycads are

K-strategists with a type 1 survivorship curve

Which of the following identifies a claim made by the author in the article?

Piping plover are endangered in Maine because of the loss of wide, open sand and dune grass habitats that the birds use for nesting.

On the coast of Oregon, mussels cover most of the rocky shoreline. Two mussel predators include Pisaster (ochre stars) and Nucella (whelks). A sixty-day removal study was conducted, and the results are presented in the graph. Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the data in the graph?

Pisaster is a keystone species because when Nucella was removed, the proportion of live mussels was similar to the control.

The Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event was caused when an asteroid impacted Earth approximately 66 million years ago, near what is now the Gulf of Mexico. The indirect effects of the impact affected the entire globe. The event resulted in the extinction of nearly 75 percent of all plant and animal species on Earth, including the majority of dinosaur species. Which of the following likely best describes why most of these species went extinct?

Rapid climate and habitat change

Red pine trees are currently found growing in only the cool northernmost areas of the central and eastern United States. Climate change is expected to have an impact on the distribution of the species. Which of the following describes the most likely change to the distribution of red pine over the next 200 years?

Red pine distribution will shift northward into Canada

Two bird species coexist by feeding on the same type of insects in different parts of a tree. One bird species hunts insects near the top of the tree. The other bird species hunts insects near the base of the tree. Which of the following concepts is demonstrated between the two bird species?

Resource Partitioning

Which of the following best describes why secondary succession generally occurs more quickly than primary succession.

Secondary succession takes place in areas that already have soil and nutrients in place, whereas primary succession occurs in areas that lack soil.

For which of the following reasons do small isolated islands have a greater rate of species extinction than larger, less isolated islands?

Small isolated islands have a lower availability of resources

A certain species of dinosaur laid large numbers of eggs, and the hatchlings had high mortality early in life. But if they survived, the young dinosaurs were able to grow at a rapid pace and disperse into the environment in order to thrive. Based on this information and the graph above, which of the following best characterizes this species of dinosaur?

The dinosaurs were r-strategists and exhibited a type 3 survivorship curve

In 1960, an invasive fly was introduced to the Galapagos Islands. To understand the relationship between the invasive fly and the tree finches that live on the island, researchers examined the mating success of two species of finches. Some finches had nests with flies and some did not. The data from the study are in the table. Based on the table, which of the following claims about the relationship between the finch and the invasive fly is best supported?

The flies and finches have a parasitic relationship; the finches provide a home for the fly, and the fly decreases the breeding success of the finches.

Population biologists are concerned about introduced species such as the zebra mussel in North America because

The introduced species compete for resources more effectively than native species

In England approximately 250 years ago, the peppered moth had light-colored wing patterns that camouflaged them against the light-colored trees. Over time in urban areas, the number of peppered moths with dark-colored wings increased as pollution from the Industrial Revolution darkened the trees the moths rested on. Which of the following statements best describes how the moths adapted to the new environment over time?

The moths adapted to the new environment by changes in the genetics of the population

The Devils Hole pupfish is one of the world's rarest fishes, spending most of its life in the top few meters of very warm waters of a cavern located in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Devils Hole, a geologic pool, is the only naturally occurring habitat for the endangered Devils Hole pupfish. This fish's habitat is one of the smallest natural ranges known for any vertebrate. Devils Hole is an extreme environment, with water temperatures and dissolved oxygen concentrations near the lethal limits for most fish species. Which of the following statements best explains why the Devils Hole pupfish are able to live in this environment?

The pupfish are well adapted to the habitat of Devils Hole and can thrive in conditions that are outside of the range of tolerance for most other species.

Which of the following can be interpreted from an age-structure diagram of a country?

The relative population growth rate of the population

The table below shows measurements of the beak size of a sample of ten ground finches on each of two islands in the Galapagos archipelago. The two islands are about ten kilometers apart, and all the birds are the same species. Given that beak size is genetically determined, which of the following hypotheses is the most likely explanation for the differences in data between the islands?

The types of food found on the two islands exert selective pressure on beak size.

Small populations of animals, such as those typically found on islands, are prone to extinction because

They are more vulnerable to unpredictable events

Brown marmorated stink bugs are native to China and Japan. They were identified in Pennsylvania for the first time in 1998 and have since spread across North America, feeding on agricultural crops. Which of the following characteristics of the brown marmorated stink bug has led to them being an invasive species in North America?

They are tolerant of a wide range of environmental conditions.