Environmental Science- Final Exam
About how much energy is lost with each transfer from one trophic level to the next
90%
The ocean contains about ________ of the earths water
97%
On human time scales, nonrenewable resources ______
Can be depleted much faster than nature can form them
____ are the fundamental structural and functional units of life
Cells
Only about 0.024% of the earth's vast water supply is available to humans and other species as liquid freshwater
False
The term ____ specifically refers to species that are introduced to a new area and then compete with and harm other species, as opposed to other introduced species that may be harmless
Invasive soecies
An exponential growth curve depicting an ever-growing population is shaped like the letter _______
J
A particular species has a very long lifespan, during which it slowly produces a few offspring in which it invests a great deal of parental effort. Which term best describes this reproductive strategy
K-selected
What term refers to the contamination of the environment by a chemical or other agent such as noise or heat to a level that is harmful to the health, survival, or activities of humans or other organisms
Pollution
After a major forest fire, communities of plants and other organisms become re-established. What is the term for this process
Secondary succession
Cone-bearing trees are characteristic of the ___
Taiga or boreal forest
Which of the following characterizes tropical rainforests
They have structured vegetation layers that provide specialized niches for animals
Which of the following is the best definition of science?
a broad field of study focused on discovering how nature works
Specialist species occupy ____
a narrow ecological niche
Populations that overshoot their carrying capacity may experience ____
a population crash
The abyssal zone of the ocean is characterized by ______
abundant living organisms despite the lack of sunlight for photosynthesis
Cultural eutrophication occurs when humans ____
allow excessive nutrients from urban and agricultural areas to enter lakes
The term "ecological footprint" can best be described as the _____
amount of land and water needed to supply a population or an area with renewable resources and to absorb and recycle the wastes and pollution produced by such resource use
Matter is best described as ____
anything that has mass and takes up space
A common misconception about evolution is that humans evolved from ___, when they actually evolved from _____
apes or monkeys; a common ancestor shared with apes and moneys
A(n) _____ contains groundwater that has collected in layers of rock, sand, and gravel
aquifers
Permafrost is characteristic of the ____ biome
arctic tundra
Producers can also be described as "self-feeders", or
autotrophs
photosynthesis is performed by
autotrophs
Lightning and _____ convert nitrogen to forms that can be used by plants
bacteria
When environmental conditions change dramatically or rapidly, a population of a species faces three possible futures: adapt to the new conditions through natural selection, migrate (if possible) to another area with more favorable conditions, or ____
become extinct
Large terrestrial regions characterized by a particular type of climate and a certain combination of dominant plant life are called ___
biomes
Tropical rain forests are dominated by ___
broadleaf evergreen plants
An element _______
can combine with one or more other elements to make a compound
All organic compounds are primarily characterized by the presence of ___
carbon
Some bats prey on certain moths, hunting them using echolocation. Some of those moths have evolved ears sensitive to the sound frequencies bats use to locate them, helping them to avoid being caught. The bats, in turn, have evolved to use change the frequency they use. This interaction is an example of ____
coevolution
Which of the following organisms can be called autotrophs
daisies, roses, and grass
Organisms that consume wastes and remains of plants and animals are ___
decomposers, usually bacteria and fungi
Which of the following could be considered a density-dependent limiting factor
disease
the rain shadow effect refers to _____
drier conditions on the leeward (facing away from the wind) side of mountain ranges
Which of the following is a branch of biology that focuses on interactions between living organisms and both the living and nonliving components of their environments
ecology
A community of different species interacting with one another and with their nonliving (abiotic) environment of matter and energy is called a
ecosystem
Which term best describes the overall processes provided by healthy ecosystems that support life and human economies at no monetary cost to us
ecosystem services
The transition zone between two ecosystems or biomes is called the ____
ecotone
A trait that creates a specific advantage for some organisms in the struggle to survive ___
enables individuals with the trait to leave more offspring than other members of the population leave
A species that is found only on one island would be described as ____
endemic
What is a social movement that is dedicated to trying to sustain the earths life-support system for all forms of life
environmentalism
About 40% of the earth's photosynthetic activity occurs in the ____ of the open ocean. This is the brightly lit upper zone
euphotic zone
Examples of economic services that oceans provide are ____
food
Complex networks of interconnected food chains in ecosystems are best described as _____
food webs
Ions are atoms or groups of atoms that have _______
gained or lost electrons
Species with broad niches are described as ____ species
generalist
Under rapidly changing environmental conditions, ____ usually have an advantage
generalist species
Scientists are now able to transfer genes between different species that would not interbreed in nature through a process called ____
genetic engineering
Traits that can be passed from one generation to the next are called ____ traits
heritable
Where do mangrove forests grow
in coastal wetlands
A country's ecological footprint is larger than its biological capacity to replenish its renewable resources and absorb the resulting waste and pollution. What can be said about this country
it has an ecological deficit
An intertidal species of seastar helps to maintain the diversity of the intertidal region by controlling the mussel population. Without the seastar, the mussel population would crowd out other species and take over their territory. The seastar could be called a ____
keystone species
The loss of ____ can lead to population crashes and even extinction in some species who rely on them for ecosystem services
keystone species
Kinetic energy and potential energy differ in that ______
kinetic energy is energy of motion and potential energy is stored energy
Biomes are _____
large terrestrial regions of the earth with distinct climate and certain species typically occurring within them
About 83% of the world's human population live in ____
less-developed countries
An acidic solution would have ___
more hydrogen ions than hydroxide ions and a pH less than 7
A relationship in which both species benefit best illustrates ____
mutualism
A thermostat set to 62 °F turns on the furnace when a house cools below that temperature, and shuts the furnace off when a house warms above that temperature. This is an example of a simple
negative feedback loop
The role a species plays in its ecosystem is its ____
niche
The most common gas in the atmosphere is ____
nitrogen
Crude oil is a _______
nonrenewable resource because it cannot be formed on a human time scale
Genes are composed of sequences of
nucleotides
Despite its low net primary productivity (NPP), the open ocean produces more of the earth's biomass per year than any other ecosystem or life zone because ____
of the enormous volume of the global ocean
Which of the following resources is nonrenewable
oil
At least half of the known species of terrestrial plants and animals are found ____
only in tropical rainforests
Aerobic respiration uses _____ to convert glucose (or other organic nutrient molecules) back into carbon dioxide and water
oxygen
A relationship, in which one organism benefits by living on or in a member of another species, which is harmed by the interaction, best illustrates ____
parasitism
Tapeworms live inside their hosts, drawing nourishment from them. This interaction is an example of ____
parasitism
The two major processes through which carbon cycles through the biosphere are _____
photosynthesis and aerobic respiration
Which statement best describes an organism's habitat
place or type of ecosystem in which a species lives
Simple organic molecules called monomers can be linked together by chemical bonds to form ____
polymers
A group of individuals of the same species living in a particular place is a(n) ___
population
Scientific hypotheses differ from scientific theories in that they are
possible, but not yet well-tested, explanations of data
A fox catches and eats a mouse. In this interaction, the fox is the ____
predator
A glacier retreats, exposing bare rock and allowing communities of organisms to move in. This is an example of ____
primary ecological succession
The atomic number of an element is the number of ___
protons in an atom
One reason biodiversity is such an important aspect of sustainability is that it ____
provides vital ecosystem services through the interactions among species and keeps any population from growing too large
sustainable yield is the highest rate at which we can use a ______ without reducing its available supply
renewable resource
Middle-income countries such as India and China may have low ____, but they have a high ____
resource use per person; overall environmental impact
Affluence has a harmful effect on the environmental impact of a population primarily because it ____
results in higher levels of per capita resource consumption
A grassland with widely scattered clumps of trees located near the equator would be called a ___
savanna
There are ____ separate Hadley cells in which warm air rises and cools, then falls and heats up again in great rolling patterns
six
Which resource would best be categorized as inexhaustible
solar energy
____ is the type of diversity that describes the number and variety of species present in any biological community
species diversity
The ozone layer, which filters out about 95% of the sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation, is found in the _____
stratosphere
Much of which biome has disappeared from the earth because it has been converted to farmland for growing crops and grazing cattle
temperate grassland
carrying capacity refers to ____
the maximum population size that a particular habitat can sustain indefinitely
Ocean acidification is occurring because ____
the ocean absorb about 25% of the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere by human activities
Net primary productivity (NPP) is the rate at which producers use photosynthesis to produce and store chemical energy minus ______
the rate at which they use some of this stored chemical energy through aerobic respiration
The equator is warmer than the poles because ____
the sun's rays strike directly at the equator
When a person rationalizes that the little bit that they use or pollute does not matter on the grand scale, this is known as ______
tragedy of the commons
A forest that is known for its year-round uniformly warm temperature is the _____
tropical rainforest
Ocean currents are most significantly affected by ____
variation in winds over the ocean and changes in the shapes of land masses
Temperate deciduous forests typically have ____
warm summers, cold winters, and abundant precipitation
An example of kinetic energy is
water flowing down a waterfall
Transpiration is the process by which ______
water is released into the air from plants
Which process best illustrates an ecosystem service
water purification
On the evening news, there is a forecast of sunny weather for the next day with a high temperature 10°F warmer than today. This is an example of ______
weather