Environmental Science Final
Match the species designation to the correct description by dragging and dropping the label to the correct description. 1. Require large areas of habitat to support them. 2. The elimination of these species would have an effect on many other species in the ecosystem. 3. Species like the bald eagle or elephant to which people have an emotional attachment to so are motivated to help conserve them. 4. Are reliably found in certain environmental conditions, but not when those conditions change.
1. Umbrella 2. Keystone 3. Flagship 4. Indicator
Describe the symbiotic relationship: 1. Spanish moss is an epiphytic plant commonly found hanging on the branches of live oak or bald cypress trees in the southeastern United States. The moss only hangs on the branches where it can easily absorb nutrients and water through its leaves. It does not harm the tree, but does not offer any nutrients or resources to the tree. 2. A number of different types of organisms can live within Spanish moss, which provides protection. The moss does not gain any nutrients from the inhabitants, but the inhabitants are protected from predation. 3. Legumes, such as soybeans, peanuts, or clover have nodules on their roots in which bacteria called Rhizobia live. When found in connection with legumes, Rhizobia fix nitrogen into a form that the plant can use, and the plant provides carbon and energy to the bacteria. 4. Downy mildew are microbes that grow on plants and eat the plant tissue.
1. commensalism 2. commensalism 3. mutualism 4. parasitism
Below a caloric intake of _______ kcal per day, on average, a person is considered chronically undernourished.
2,200
Approximately how many species have been identified on Earth?
A little more than 1.7 million
Which of the following is the person most often recognized as the pioneer of restoration ecology?
Aldo Leopold
Subduction is the process of a tectonic plate
Being forced below another plate
The restoration of Nonsuch Island in Bermuda has been very successful, particularly in preserving the
Bermuda cahow
Which of the following is NOT a major type of rock?
Bituminious
The country with the largest production of rare earth metals is
China
Use the following scenario: There are three ecological communities, each with differing species, but all of them have 100 individual plants and animals. Community A has 21 species. Of the 110 individuals, there are 50 individuals of one species and 3 each of the other 20 species. Community B has 11 species. Of the 110 individuals, there are 90 individuals of one species and 2 each of the other 10 species. Community C has 11 species. Of the 110 individuals, there are 10 individuals of each species. In this scenario, which community has the highest species richness?
Community A
A species in imminent danger of extinction is classified by the U.S. Endangered Species Act as
Endangered
True or False: Fossil fuels currently supply about 50 percent of the world's commercial energy supplies.
False
Which of the following best describes tectonic plates:
Floating plates on top of a moving, convective mantle
The rainiest or snowiest zone on the mountain in the diagram would be in the area marked
From A to B
The acronym that stands for habitat destruction, invasive species, pollution, human population, and overharvesting is
HIPPO
Which of the following statements is true?
Humans may have been causing extinctions for thousands of years, but our impact has recently increased.
Human population levels from the time of the Agricultural Revolution to the present depict a ______- shaped curve.
J
Below are histograms showing the age distributions of three different countries. Label the type of population growth you would expect to see in each country.
Left to right: stable, declining, rapidly growing
Climate is a description of ________ weather conditions.
Long-term regional
Coal is derived from __________ compressed and hardened over millennia.
Plant material from swamps
The Berkely mine pit in Butte, Montana, may be the most toxic water body in the United States. Water entering the pit is now being treated and eventually there may be an effort to pump water out of the pit and decontaminate it, but the pit itself will probably never be filled in. What type of project would this process be considered?
Reclamation
Which of the following explains coral bleaching?
Rising water temperatures cause corals to lose their symbiont, which can kill the coral.
There are four stages in the demographic transition model shown below. From the list of terms, correctly label each stage in the model.
Stage I: prep-modern Stage II: urbanizing/industrializing Stage III: mature/industrial Stage IV: post industrial
The "ozone hole" that causes concern among scientists and the public is an ozone depletion in the
Stratosphere
Which of the following is NOT an economic value of coral reefs?
They are made of invertebrate organisms with a calcium carbonate shell.
Drag the boxes to complete the illustration explaining the interaction between tectonic plates.
Top to bottom, L to R: oceanic crust, continental plate, earthquakes can be generated here, new basalt formed here, volcanoes generated here
The fertility rate of a given country is largely determined by its level of economic development. From the list provided, label the individual graphs in terms of the level of development.
Top to bottom: least-developed countries, less-developed regions, world, more-developed regions
True or False: Nuclear fusion has great potential as an alternative fuel source, but despite decades of research fusion reactors have never reached the break-even point at which they produce more energy than they consume.
True
Yucca Mountain, Nevada is the site of
a proposed national nuclear waste repository
Which of the following would have the highest albedo?
a snowfield
Biocentric preservationists, first led by John Muir, advocate saving natural areas for their
aesthetic and spiritual values and wildlife habitat
In general, water use worldwide is dominated by
agricultural use
The zone of saturation is the portion of groundwater where
all soil or rock pore spaces are filled with water
The goal of the Endangered Species Act is to protect
all species, regardless of their direct usefulness to humans.
A diet inadequate in iron produces a condition called
anemia
Confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have greatly increased the production of meat in the United States, such as the poultry operation. However, the high population density requires the use of _____ and generates __________, which often causes local __________.
antibiotics, large quantities of manure, water and air pollution
Tolerance limits are _______ that limit a species' survival.
any environmental conditions
Populations can be critically limited by
any of these, depending on the system
Natural selection will ultimately make a species
better adapted to its environment
Which of the following is not considered a fossil fuel?
charcoal
As shown in the plot, water is required to grow and process the food we eat, with some foods requiring significantly more water than others. Because world population continues to expand as water supplies become scarcer, many environmentalists are promoting a more plant-based diet as a means of both conserving our water supplies and expanding food production.
continues to expand, scarcer, plant-based
As illustrated here, Earth's climate has transitioned from a cooler to a warmer state, with global average temperatures consistently now above the long-term 20ᵗʰ century average. These data also show that record warm years are occurring more frequently.
cooler, warmer, above, more
As indicted in the graph, birthrates in a country tend to _____ as its citizens become _____ affluent. This results in an _____ relationship between population growth and economic output as measured by GDP
decrease, more, inverse
Taxonomy is a branch of science which
describes relationships among species
The greatest future growth in human numbers is expected to occur in the
developing nations
Which if the following irrigation techniques is least wasteful of water?
drip irrigation
The idea of stewardship is that humans have a/the ___________ the environment.
duty to care for
A giant sea swell known as a tsunami is caused by
earthquakes
The total set of environmental factors that determine a species distribution within a specific habitat is referred to as its ______ ______.
ecological niche
The branch of philosophy concerned with the distinction between right and wrong and the ultimate worth of actions of things is
ethics
Invasive species
flourish in a new environment due to a lack of predators, diseases, or resource limitations.
The activity that uses the greatest share of U.S. household water is
flushing the toilet
One of the ways society has been able to increase food production and feed our growing population is by developing breeds of plants known as "high responders." As indicated in the graph, a high responder produces __________ under optimum conditions of __________. However, famers who can't afford the higher costs of high responders may get better results with __________ of plants.
greater yields, water and fertilizers, traditional varieties of
The largest contributing factor for the current high rate of animal extinctions is
habitat destruction worldwide
In the fourth century B.C., the philosopher Plato wrote of the erosion and deforestation that _________ Greece.
had stripped the fine soils and forests of
In China, reforestation projects have been undertaken to
halt encroachment of the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts.
The green revolution centered on the development of which of the following?
high-yield breeds of food crops
Pressurized fluid and chemicals injected into a well are used in a mining process called __________.
hydraulic fracturing
The hydrologic compartment that contains the greatest amount of fresh water is
ice and snow
Rocks formed from solidified magma are known as ________ rocks.
igneous
Sustainable development means
improving people's lives in the present in a way that can continue far into the future
High responder crops of the green revolution produce tremendous yields
in response to fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation
Nuclear waste storage in the United States is currently handled
in temporary storage at individual plants
Worldwide per capita use of water has
increased substantially.
Water enters groundwater by
infiltration
This set of measurements, obtained from the pristine environment on Mauna Loa, Hawaii, is one of the more compelling lines of evidence that global warming is following the modern rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂). From the graph one can see that average CO₂ concentrations rose from 315 to 400 parts per million (ppm) since 1957, at the same time average temperature increased nearly 0.9°C.
is following, 315 to 400, 0.9
The Keeling graph, although it has yearly oscillations, shows that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere __________.
is steadily rising.
The average age that a newborn can expect to attain in a given society is referred to as
life expectancy
Intraspecific competition is competition among ________ for resources.
members of a single species
As shown in the figure, the volume of Arctic sea ice that survives each summer has decreased dramatically since 1980. The loss of ice exposes more of the Arctic Ocean to solar radiation during the summer. This causes more solar heating of the ocean, which in turn melts more ice. This process represents a positive feedback that accelerates even more ice loss and warming in the Arctic Ocean.
more, solar heating, melts, positive, accelerates even more ice loss and warming
The abundance of a given species is governed by the tolerance limits of environmental factors affecting reproduction and/or the ability to survive. In the optimum tolerance range, species reproduce and survive __________, hence, species are _____. In zones of physiological stress, species reproduce and survive __________, and they are ___________. In zones of intolerance, species reproduce and survive with __________, and they are __________.
most easily, abundant, with some difficulty, less abundant, great difficulty.
Chronic _____ is a growing problem around the world. In wealthy countries, the number of people that are _____ now greatly exceeds the number that are _____.
obesity, overweight, underweight
In a commensal relationship,
one species benefits while the other neither suffers nor benefits
The population theory held by Thomas Malthus was that the human population would
outstrip its resources, then suffer starvation and misery
Crude birth rates are measured in terms of the number of children born
per 1,000 people each year
Environmentalism stemming from the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring differed from earlier North American conservation perspectives by
placing more emphasis on pollution problems
The attempt to rebuild a community into a functioning system which may differ from the original condition is known as
rehabilitation.
Nuclear fission occurs when a high-energy subatomic particle, a neutron, strikes a uranium atom, releases energy and
releases neutrons
In a biological community where diversity is great, such as a tropical rainforest, the abundance of any one species is likely to be
small
The first step in ecological restoration is to
stop whatever is causing the damage.
This 800,000 year ice-core record from Antarctica shows a strong correlation between atmospheric temperature and carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentration. It also shows that the climate naturally cycles between colder glacial and warmer interglacial periods. Of concern to climate scientists is that for at least the past 800,000 years, CO₂ concentrations stayed between 180 and 300 parts per million (ppm), but is now close to 400ppm.
strong, colder, warmer, 180 and 300
Acid mine drainage (runoff) is a serious problem in many mining districts where mine tunnels and piles of waste rock (tailings) contain sulfide minerals that react with air and water to produce sulfuric acid and release heavy metals. The highly toxic and acidic water then drains from the mines and waste piles and flows into nearby streams where it destroys aquatic ecosystems.
sulfuric, heavy metals, destroys aquatic ecosystems
By far the greatest amount of proven natural gas reserves are found in
the Middle East
Food security refers to
the ability to obtain sufficient food on a day-to-day basis
Energy is defined as
the capacity to do work.
The term "toxic colonialism" has been used in describing
the exportation of toxic wastes to poor communities
The I = PAT formula says that our environmental impacts (I) are the product of
the population size times affluence and the technology used to produce goods and services consumed
The word "environment" comes from a French word that means
to surround
The total fertility rate is the number of children born
to the average woman during her lifetime
The greatest amount of energy in the U.S. is used for
transportation
The layer of atmosphere immediately above the earth where weather events occur is called the
troposphere.
True or False: A significant dilemma facing restoration ecologists is deciding the earlier condition to which a site should be restored.
true
True or False: Existing U.S. mining law is based on legislation passed in 1872.
true
True or False: Genetically modified crops are created by inserting genetic material from one species into another.
true
True or False: Island ecosystems are extremely susceptible to invasive species.
true
True or False: Native American people frequently set fire to the prairie in order to provide for hunting grounds and ease of travel.
true
True or False: Nitrogen is the most abundant component of the air we breathe.
true
True or False: One of the earliest models for conservation in the United States was based on utilitarian conservation, for which nature was conserved not to protect biodiversity, but to provide jobs and resources.
true
The three crops that provide the majority of humanity's nutrients and calories are
wheat, rice, and corn
The total amount of water taken from a lake, river, or aquifer for any purpose is known as
withdrawal
