Environmental Science Test 2

A grassy meadow high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of eastern California is known to support a variety of organisms. During the summers when grass is thick and lush, and wildflowers abound, butterflies take advantage of this abundant nectar source. Bears graze on the berries in shrubs at the edge of the meadow. Deer also forage at the edge of the meadow. In the early mornings, coyotes are known to prey on the squirrel and mouse populations that burrow into the meadow soil. A variety of birds prey on the butterflies and other flying insects, such as bees and wasps. If the biomass of flowers that supports the butterflies was known to contain 100,000 units of energy, and certain bird species were eating the butterflies that foraged on the flowers, what amount of energy, on average, could be expected to be transferred to the birds?

1,000

In a certain population of rabbits, 25 new rabbits are born, and five move into the population from surrounding areas during a single year. However, 10 rabbits die, and five leave the population during the same time frame. What is the population change for that year?

15

The species-area relationship suggests that if 90% of the habitat of a terrestrial species is lost, then ____.

50% of the species utilizing the area will go extinct

The ocean covers ____ of the earth's surface.

71%

The organization that certifies forestry operations that use sustainable practices is the ____.

Forest Stewardship Council

When bacteria are exposed to antibiotic medications, they can develop resistance so that the drugs no longer harm them. For this to occur, the bacteria must experience ____ followed by ____.

a beneficial mutation; natural selection

A population crash is also known as ____.

a dieback

Specialist species occupy ____.

a narrow ecological niche

The carrying capacity of a population is ____.

able to rise and fall

In debt for nature swaps, participating countries ____.

act as custodians of protected forest reserves in return for foreign aid or debt relief

A heritable trait that improves the ability of an individual organism to survive and to reproduce at a higher rate than other individuals in a population is called an ____.

adaption

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

Humans have used ____ to change the genetic characteristics of populations to generate individuals with desired traits.

artificial selection

The term "biomagnification" means that a chemical ____ at each trophic level in a food chain or web.

becomes more concentrated

Desserts, tropical forests, prairie grasslands, and coniferous forests have distinct climates and certain species; they are all examples of ____.

biomes

Large numbers of visitors to parks and protected areas ____.

can result in damage from the use of facilities or recreational vehicles

Geographic Information System (GSI) software allows scientists to ____.

capture, store, analyze, and display geographic data

A K-selected species usually has a population size that is ____.

close to its carrying capacity

A species of snake has evolved resistance to a poisonous newt, allowing the snakes to prey on the newts. The newts have become more poisonous over time, as a result, leading to a kind of evolutionary arms race. This is an example of ____.

coevolution

A relationship in which one species benefits while the other is neither helped nor harmed to any significant degree best illustrates ____.

commensalism

Giant African millipedes often serve as the home for small mites that scavenge organic matter, but the millipedes do not appear to be affected by the interaction. This is an example of ____.

commensalism

An endangered species is best described as any species that ____.

could soon become extinct

A ____ is an extremely hot fire that leaps from treetop to treetop, burning whole trees.

crown fire

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

Unlike nitrogen or carbon, phosphorous ____.

does not cycle through the atmosphere and its cycle more slowly

The rain shadow effect refers to ____.

drier conditions on the leeward (facing away from the wind) side of mountain ranges

Succulent plants are most likely to be found in ____.

dry conditions, such as those in temperate deserts

An example of a detritus feeder is an ____.

earthworm

Various plant species provide value as food crops, fuelwood, lumber, paper from trees, and useful scientific knowledge. What term best describes this type of value?

economic services

The earth's variety of deserts, grasslands, forests, mountains, oceans, lakes, rivers, and wetlands can be described as ____.

ecosystem diversity

The transition zone between two ecosystems or biomes is called an ____.

ecotone

A trait that creates a specific advantage for some organisms in the struggle to survive ____.

enables individuals with the traits to leave more offspring than the other members of the population leave

The collective term for factors that act to limit the growth of population is ____.

environmental resistance

About 40% of the earth's photosynthetic activity occurs in the ____ of the open ocean.

euphotic zone

Pronghorn antelope live in the high desert of the Great Basin in the western United States. Which of the following items are possible abiotic factors that an antelope has to contend with?

extreme maximum and minimum temperatures in the high desert

Examples of economic services that oceans provide are ____.

food

Species with broad niches are described as ____ species.

generalist

We can say that on a long-term basis, ____ has especially helped life on the earth to adapt to drastic changes in environmental conditions.

genetic biodiversity

The variety of genes found in a species or population is knowns as ____.

genetic diversity

____ is the most common cause of speciation.

geographic isolation

The earth's life-support system consists of four main spherical systems including the air, water, living things, and the ____.

geosphere

Which best represents the process of aerobic respiration?

glucose + oxygen >>> carbon dioxide + water + energy

An organism can be described as a tertiary consumer if it eats ____.

herbivores and carnivores

Traits can be passed from one generation to the next are called ____ traits.

heritable

Humans have which of the following major impacts on mountain biomes?

hydroelectric dams and reservoirs

The ____ includes all of the water in all phases (solid, liquid, or gas) on or near the earth's surface.

hydrosphere

At least half of the known species of terrestrial plants and animals are found ____.

in only tropical rainforests

Amphibians are very sensitive to chemicals in their environment and often show effects of harmful chemicals before other species do. This makes them useful as an ____.

indicator species

The zone of a biosphere reserve where there is little, if any, disturbance from human activities is the ____.

inner core

In 1957, Brazil imported wild African honeybees to help increase honey production. The bees escaped and became established in the wild, displacing some native honeybee populations and leading to a reduced honey supply. These African honeybees could be described as ____.

invasive

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 species

Strip cutting of timber is a method of harvesting that ____.

involves clearing trees along a contour of the land within a narrow corridor

Carbon is extremely important because ____.

it is an essential building block for organic molecules such as carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and nucleic acids such as DNA.

Biomes are ____.

large terrestrial regions of the earth with distinct climate and certain species typically occurring within them

What is currently the most important threat to the survival of polar bears?

limited hunting opportunities due to less floating ice

External agents such as radioactivity, ultraviolet radiation, and some chemicals are ____when they cause mutations.

mutagens

What statement is true with regard to mutations?

mutations that survive in a population are determined by natural selection

A relationship in which both species benefit best illustrates ____.

mutualism

The chemical formula for the nitrogen gas in the atmosphere is ____.

n2

The role a species plays in its ecosystem is its ____.

niche

The most common gas in the atmosphere is ____.

nitrogen

One challenge of laboratory research is that ____.

observations may not reflect what actually takes place in nature

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

A grassy meadow high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of eastern California is known to support a variety of organisms. During the summers when grass is thick and lush, and wildflowers abound, butterflies take advantage of this abundant nectar source. Bears graze on the berries in shrubs at the edge of the meadow. Deer also forage at the edge of the meadow. In the early mornings, coyotes are known to prey on the squirrel and mouse populations that burrow into the meadow soil. A variety of birds prey on the butterflies and other flying insects, such as bees and wasps. Coyotes typically forage on mice and squirrels. However, as members of the canine family, Canidae, they also eat berries and parts of plants. As such, coyotes are classified as ____.

omnivores

Life on earth depends on the ____ of ____ energy from the sun.

one-way flow; high-quality

Species that are r-selected are often ____.

oppurtunists

Ecologists primarily focus on studying interactions from the level of ____ to the level of ____.

organisms; the biosphere

A relationship, in which one organism benefits by living on or in a member or another species, which is harmed by the interactions, best illustrates ____.

parasitism

Tapeworms live inside and may harm their hosts by drawing nourishment from them. This interaction is an example of ____.

parasitism

Which statement best describes an organism's habitat?

place or type of ecosystem in which a species lives

One threat to kelp forests is ____.

polluted water running off the land and into coastal waters

A group of individuals of the same species living in a particular place is a ____.

population

When an owl consumes a mouse, this is an example of ____.

predation

Species that have a capacity for a high rate of population increase are called ____.

r-selected species

The process by which members of isolated populations become so different in genetic makeup that they cannot produce live, fertile offspring if they are rejoined together is best described as ____.

reproductive isolation

Which term best describe the ability of a living system to be restored through secondary ecological succession after a severe disturbance?

resilience

Hawks typically forage for their rodent prey species during the daytime. Although owls may eat similar prey species, and live in the same area, they forage during the night. This is best described as an example of ____.

resource partitioning

The Everglades in southern Florida were affected substantially by surrounding development and use of land for agricultural purposes. Additionally, introduced species have been a major problem. In one part of Everglades National Park, abandoned farmland was colonized by invasive plant species that outcompeted native species. Researchers are attempting to replace the invasive species with native species to produce an ecosystem more similar to the one that existed before these problems occurred. Which term best describes this type of study?

restoration ecology

Strips of vegetation along streams or rivers are called ____.

riparian zones

A grassland with widely scattered clumps of trees located near the equator would be called a ____.

savanna

An organism that consumes living plant-eating animals is a ____.

secondary consumer

There are ____ separate Hadley cells in which warm air rises and cools, then falls and heats up again in great rolling patterns.

six

____ is the type of diversity that describes the number and variety of species present in any biological community.

species diversity

Ozone, a gas that filters out harmful ultraviolet (UV) 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

K-selected species ____.

tend to reproduce later in life and have a small number of offspring with fairly long life spans

An orca is an example of a ____.

tertiary consumer

Carrying capacity refers to ____.

the maximum population size that a particular habitat can sustain indefinitely

A population of deer suddenly decreases dramatically in number. This most likely occurred because ____.

the population increased beyond its carrying capacity

The equator is warmer than the poles because ____.

the sun's rays strike directly at the equator

Which characteristic must be true in order for a trait to be impacted by the forces of natural selection and then play a role in the process of biological evolution?

the trait must be genetically based

Sharks are important because ____.

they are keystone species that perform important ecosystem services, such as removing sick and injured animals from the population

Which of the following is the best example of ecotourism?____.

tourists explore tropical rain forests in Costa Rica to see the diverse animals, ranging from monkeys to poison dart frogs.

Food chains and food webs show how producers, consumers, and decomposers are connected to one another as chemical energy flows through different ____ in an ecosystem.

trophic levels

The greatest threat to species habitat is ____

tropical deforestation

A forest that is known for its year-round uniformly warm temperature is the ____.

tropical rainforest

The air we breathe is part of the lowermost layer of the atmosphere, which is called the ____.

troposphere

The current rate of extinction is ____ , compared to the historical background extinction rate.

up to 1,000 times higher

Poison dart frogs have bright coloration that is easily visible to other animals. This is an example of ____.

warning coloration that advertises their ability to harm predators