Environmental Science Ch.5
When populations of two different species interact over long periods of time, changes in the gene pool of one species can lead to changes in the gene pool of the other. What is this called?
coevolution
What occurs when an interaction benefits one species but has little, if any, effect on the other?
commensalism
Kelp forests are composed of large concentrations of a(n) ____.
seaweed
What is not considered a form of nondestructive behavior?
using the energy or body of another organisms as a food source
The non-poisonous ____ butterfly gains protection by looking like the bad-tasting ____ butterfly, which is a protective device known as ____.
viceroy; monarch; mimicry
Kelp forests are a very important ecosystem in marine waters by supporting important biodiversity. These kelp forests are threatened by ____.
water pollution containing herbicides and fertilizers, sea urchins, and global warming
By 1900, white-tailed deer populations in the U.S. were reduced to about ____, but now, since laws have been passed to protect them and their natural predators have nearly been eliminated, their population is over ____ in the U.S.
50,000; 25 million
If the resilience of a damaged ecosystem is low enough, the degraded area may not be restored by secondary succession. When this happens, the damaged ecosystem has reached ____.
a tipping point
The situation in which one set of species makes an area suitable for species with different niche requirements and often, less suitable for itself, is called ____.
facilitation
Organisms with clumped distributions are fairly rare. T/F
false
The growth rate of a population increases as its size nears the carrying capacity of its environment. T/F
false
The most common interaction between species is commensalism. T/F
false
The capacity to withstand external stress and disturbance is called ____.
stability
Animal predators tend to kill the sick, weak, aged, and least fit members of a species because they are the easiest to catch. T/F
true
Grasslands have a high resilience and therefore can recover quickly following a fire. T/F
true
Humans compete with many other species for space, food, and other resources. T/F
true
Each population in an ecosystem has a ____ to variations in its physical and chemical environment.
range of tolerance
At the population level, parasites are always harmful to the host species. T/F
false
Humans are exempt from population overshoot and dieback. T/F
false
The relationship between bacteria that live in the digestive systems of animals, such as humans, is ____.
mutualism
What is succession that begins in an area where an ecosystem has been disturbed, removed, or destroyed, and that contains soil or bottom sediment?
secondary succession
Bats prey on certain species of moths by using high frequency echolocation to locate their prey. Certain moths have evolved ears that can hear these frequencies allowing them to escape. This is an example of ____.
coevolution
A population increases through birth and ____.
immigration
The ability of a living system to survive moderate disturbances is called ____.
inertia
What occurs when members of two or more species interact to gain access to the same limited resources?
interspecific competition
If multiple species find themselves competing for the same resource, the competition can be reduced by what?
resource partitioning
Species can, over a long period of time, develop adaptations that allow them to reduce or avoid competition by sharing resources. This is called ____.
resource partitioning
Late successional plants are largely unaffected by plants at earlier stages of succession because they are not in direct competition for resources, a factor called ____.
tolerance
In communities and ecosystems the types and numbers of species change in response to changing environmental conditions. T/F
true
In predator-prey relationships, the predator is seeking food for itself and its offspring, while the prey is seeking not to become food for the predator. As a result, predator and prey populations exert tremendous natural selection pressures on each other. T/F
true
Large mammals, such as elephants and rhinoceroses, are especially vulnerable to extinction because of their reproductive patterns. T/F
true
Primary and secondary ecological succession tend to increase biodiversity of communities and ecosystems by increasing species richness and interactions among species. T/F
true
Scientists have changed their view about a stable type of climax community as the end product of succession and are now suggesting we can not predict the course of succession. T/F
true
The carrying capacity of any given area is not fixed. T/F
true
The southern sea otter is a tool-using mammal. T/F
true
What would cause a population to overshoot its carrying capacity?
a reproductive time lag between birth and death rates
What exhibits primary succession?
a rock exposed by a retreating glacier
What exhibits secondary ecological succession?
recently flooded land
What refers to the ability of a living system to be restored after a period of moderate to severe disturbance?
resilience
Kelp forests help reduce ____ by blunting the force of incoming waves and trapping some of the outgoing sand.
shore erosion
What is the most common interaction between species?
competition
Emigration is the ____.
departure movement of individuals from a population to another area
What has caused the population of the southern sea otters to fluctuate?
parasites from house cats
What is it called when one organism feeds on another organism by living on or in the other organism?
parasitism
A group of interbreeding individuals of the same species in the same geographic region is called a(n) ____.
population
What is the number of individuals in a population found within a defined area or volume that can limit the size of some populations?
population density
What describes an organism that is too old to reproduce?
post-reproductive
Some species that tend to reproduce later in life and have a small number of offspring with long life spans ____.
are vulnerable to extinction
What was the primary reason the southern sea otter nearly went extinct by the early 1900s?
Because they have thick, luxurious fur.
What is a population's distribution of individuals among various age groups called?
age structure
There are ____ limits to population growth in nature.
always
The primary reason why southern sea otter recovery is important is because they ____.
are a keystone species
Most ecologists now recognize that mature, late-successional ecosystems ____.
are in a state of continual disturbance and change
The maximum population of a given species that a particular habitat can sustain indefinitely is the definition of ____.
carrying capacity
Some prey species discourage predators with chemicals that are poisonous, irritating, foul smelling, or bad tasting. What is this called?
chemical warfare
What is the most common distribution of populations?
clumped
Plants such as bromeliads share a commensalism interaction with large trees in tropical and subtropical forests by attaching to the trunks or branches of the trees. The bromeliads are an example of ____.
epiphytes
When plotting the number of individuals in a population against time, the data yield a J-shaped curve. What does this curve indicate?
exponential growth
From the ____ point of view, parasites are harmful, but from the ____ perspective, parasites can promote diversity.
host's; population's
Parasites rarely kill their ____.
hosts
Too much or too little of any physical or chemical factor can prevent the growth of a population, even if all other factors are at or near the optimum conditions. What is this ecological principle?
limiting factor
Exponential growth followed by a steady decrease in population growth until the population size stabilizes is typical of ____.
logistic growth
Grasslands have ____ and can burn easily.
low inertia
The relationship between clownfish and sea anemone is called ____.
mutualism
When two species behave in ways that benefit both by providing each with food, shelter, or some other resource, it is called ____.
mutualism
