QUIZ questions
Which of the following is an assumption of the geometric growth equation?
- reproduction can (and does) occur continuously - population growth is discrete - the growth rate is constant
quiz question: Assume a population of bacteria is growing exponentially under an r = 1.5 per hour. What is the doubling time of this population?
.5 h
quiz question: A bacterial population has a doubling time of 0.5 h. What is its intrinsic growth rate (r)?
1.386
quiz question: The population density of a particular insect species was determined to be 15,000 adults per hectare in the summer of 1996, and 21,000 adults per hectare in the summer of 1997, Based on these population estimates, what is your estimate of λ, the annual rate of geometric growth?
1.4
quiz question: If there are 150 cheatgrass plants in a single plot of land at year 10 and the population is growing with a finite rate of increase (λ) of 1.2, approximately how many plants were in the initial invasion at time zero? Assume geometric growth.
24
quiz question: If there are 150 cheatgrass plants in a single plot of land at year 5 and the population is growing with a finite rate of increase (λ) of 1.2, approximately how many plants were in the initial invasion at time zero? Assume geometric growth.
60
quiz question: A local population of Japanese beetles is growing geometrically with λ = 1.1 (per year). The population on July 31 this year consists of 800 adults. How many adults will be in this population on July 31 in TWO years?
968
quiz question: The giving-up density (GUD) of blue jays feeding on college campuses tends to be higher than that of blue jays feeding in suburban backyards. Which of the following hypotheses is consistent with this result?
Blue jays perceive predation risk to be higher on college campuses
Why does the European goldfinch, a seed eating bird, forage in flocks? A. Flocking reduces perceived predation risk B. Flocking increases foraging efficiently C. both A & B
C. both A & B
quiz question: Imagine that a group of individuals are playing the Iterated Vampire Bat's Dilemma. Each round, players pair off randomly to play. Can you predict which set of conditions would be most likely to lead to the evolution of cooperation?
Cooperation is more likely to evolve when individuals repeatedly play the same partner and remember that partner's former behavior
quiz question: In terms of biological diversity and productivity, the open ocean is similar to _________, whereas coral reefs are similar to __________.
Desert, tropical rainforest
quiz question: Which of the following is used to distinguish aquatic biomes? I. salinity II. depth III. flow
I, II, & III
quiz question: Which is likely to follow an exponential increase in population size? I. A population of mice that has consumed most of the food in its habitat II. A small population of rats recently introduced to an island with many resources III. Bacteria recently placed on a new petri dish with suitable growth medium
II & III only
quiz question: Why is altruistic behavior an evolutionary problem?
It does not lead to an increase in direct fitness.
quiz question: When a parental generation undergoes stabilizing selection, how will the distribution of phenotypes in the population change between the parental generation and their progeny?
Mean phenotype stays the same, but variability decreases
quiz question: Why do some adaptive traits, such as thicker fur or flowers of different colors, evolve over time within a population of organisms?
Organisms with these traits survived longer and had more offspring than other organisms in the population, so their traits were passed on to more offspring.
quiz question: _____________ is common in acidic soils (typical of cool, moist regions, where plant material brakes down slowly, such as needle leaf litter), whereas _______________ is common in tropical and subtropical regions where soils weather to great depths.
Podzolization, laterization
quiz question: Individuals in a large insect population display wide variation in the shape of their nectar-gathering mouthparts. A new food source, with flowers of different shapes, replaces the previous one, and insects with shorter, thicker mouthparts are much more efficient at gathering nectar from the new type of flower. Over multiple generations, what will likely happen to the variation of mouth parts within the population of insects?
Shorter, thicker mouth parts will become more prevalent in the insect population, although some variation will continue to exist.
quiz question: A chef sprays antimicrobial cleaner on her counter top. At the first, the bacteria population declines significantly. However, even though she continues to spray in following weeks, the number of bacteria begins to increase again. Why did this happen?
Some bacteria had traits that allowed them to survive the initial antimicrobial application. They produced offspring also carrying those traits.
quiz question: In a famous test of the notion that evolution happens by the inheritance of acquired characteristics, August Weismann maintained a population of mice in his lab for 22 generations. Each generation he measured tail length, randomly chose individuals to be breeders, snipped off the breeders' tails, and then let breeders mate to produce the next generation. Average tail length did not change from the 1st generation to the 22nd. That is, the population failed to evolve. What's the most likely reason the population did not evolve?
Tail length (that is, the length of tails mice were born with) had negligible influence on which individuals surivived to reproduce.
quiz question: Hamilton's rule specifies that an altruistic behavior will be favored when:
The actor's inclusive fitness gains exceed the associated cost
quiz question: In an experiment with a particular bacterial species, you culture 100 samples in separate petri dishes. Half of these, group A, have all necessary nutrients, while group B have low levels of one important nutrient. All petri dishes are placed in an incubator and are treated identically. After several weeks, you measure colony growth and find that the colonies in group B are, on average, 4 mm smaller in diameter than those in group A. What is the most reasonable explanation?
The growth rate of bacteria in Group B is lower due to limitation of the one important nutrient.
quiz question: The age structure of a population is often represented by a pyramid. What does an age structure pyramid with a broad base and a narrow top indicate about a population?
The population is growing.
quiz question: A ship that had been used for many years in arctic exploration was sold and moved to a harbor in the warm waters of the Caribbean. Worms that had lived on the ship bottom crawled off in the warm waters and attempted to attach to other ships in this tropical area where there were no similar worms. Some of the worms were able to survive and reproduce. What would you expect to happen to this group of worms over many generations in this new environment?
Worms possessing genetic variations that help them to survive and thrive in the new environment will leave more offspring than others lacking those traits. Over time, the proportion of the worm population with these adaptive traits will likely increase.
quiz question: Consider three populations of a plant species, each isolated from other populations of the same species. Population X has contained approximately 100 individuals in each generation for the past 200 generations. Population Y has contained approximately 10,000 individuals in each generation for the past 200 generations. Population Z has contained approximately 1 million individuals in each generation for the past 200 generations. If genetic drift is the only evolutionary process acting on these populations, how can we expect the amount of genetic variation to differ among these populations?
X will have the lowest variation, Y will have intermediate variation, and Z will have the highest variation.
quiz question: In a given biome, the growing season describes a period of the year when the
average temperature is above 0•C
quiz question: Pikas use alarm calls to warn each other about predators. Pikas are territorial and neighbors may or may not be closely related. One hypothesis as to why pikas give alarm calls is that callers gain a direct benefit from warning neighbors. Which of the following observations would provide the best support for this hypothesis?
callers are more likely to avoid predation.
quiz question: The term that describes the maximum number of individuals in a population that a habitat can support is:
carrying capacity
quiz question: If C is the cost of a particular behavior for the donor, B is the benefit of the behavior to the recipient, and r is the coefficient of relationship, what does the equation C < Br describe?
conditions under which a selfish behavior will decrease in the population conditions under which an altruistic behavior will increase in the population
quiz question: In the logistic growth model, the per-capita growth rate __________ as population size _________.
decreases, increases
quiz question: Factors that can impact a population that vary with the density of a population are called:
density-dependent factors
quiz question: Temperate rainforests are typically dominated by
evergreen trees
quiz question: The A horizon is the result of leaching or eluviation, whereby groundwater removes substances by dissolving them and moving them to lower horizons. TRUE OR FALSE
false
quiz question: The saguaro and the prickly pear cactus have similar characteristics (they are succulent and they have thorns). Their last (most recent) common ancestor was a cactus that was succulent and had thorns. Therefore the presence of succulent tissues and thorns in saguaro and prickly pear cactus is the result of convergent evolution.
false
quiz question: Traits (characteristics) of organisms that are the result of common ancestry (= trait was present in their most recent common ancestor) are referred to as convergence.
false
quiz question: true or false: Evolution occurs only by natural selection.
false
quiz question: true or false: The ABO blood group phenotype of an individual cannot be determined based on the genotype because this phenotype is influenced by the environment
false
quiz question: A declining population of an endangered butterfly is determined to have an exponential rate of decrease of r = −0.02. What is the corresponding value of λ for this population?
greater than 0 less than 1
quiz question: As a river flows downstream, it generally
has more nutrients
quiz question: An important characteristic of streams is
high allochthonous inputs.
quiz question: Under positive density dependence, population growth rate ______
increases as populations become larger
quiz question: When a phenotype is under disruptive selection, which parts of the phenotypic distribution are expected to have the highest fitness?
individuals with both extreme large and extreme small values of the phenotype
quiz question: Many species are sexually dimorphic with one sex being much more extravagantly ornamented than the other. Generally speaking, one would expect males to be comparatively showy and females to be comparatively drab if which of the following were true?
male reproductive success is much more variable than that of females
quiz question: What process creates new alleles in a population?
mutation
quiz question: The profundal zone of a lake contains
no sunlight
quiz question: In a population growing according to the exponential growth model, population size is ______
not limited
A population is defined as a group of organisms:
of the same species occupying a particular space at a particular time
quiz question: Negative density dependence occurs when the ______
per capita population growth rate decreases as population becomes larger.
quiz question: In a study of a particular plant species, populations with fewer than 100 individuals had substantially reduced fecundity (fewer fruits per flower and fewer seeds per fruit), than larger populations. This is an example of
positive density dependence
quiz question: Many aquatic organisms reproduce when many males and females release large quantities of their gametes into a water. This process, spawning, is a type of:
promiscuity
quiz question: Which of these terms describes a general mating system in which individuals mate with multiple partners without a lasting social bond?
promiscuity
quiz question: The logistic growth form is sometimes also described as a:
s-shaped curve
quiz question: Which aquatic environments are typically among the most productive on earth?
salt marshes and estuaries
quiz question: The Mediterranean woodland/shrubland biome is characterized by thick evergreen shrubby vegetation. The small, drought-resistant leaves of these plants are said to be
sclerophyllous.
quiz question: Where could you NOT go to see well-developed examples of the temperate seasonal forest biome? -Eastern Asia -South America -Europe -United States and southeastern Canada
south america
quiz question: Based on fitness effects on donors and recipients, which type of social interaction is expected to occur LEAST often?
spitefulness?
quiz question: Where are you most likely to find oxisols?
the amazon rainforest
quiz question: The aphotic zone is a feature in
the open ocean
quiz question: The coefficient of relatedness measures
the probability of an individual and its relatives carrying copies of the same genes (alleles) from a recent common ancestor.
quiz question: Which sex should show mate choice (in other words, which sex should be the choosier one)?
the sex having higher parental investment
quiz question: Population growth rates sometimes increase with increasing population density, especially at low population densities, as seen in certain fish stocks. We refer to this kind phenomenon as Allee effect.
true
quiz question: The E horizon is the result of leaching or eluviation, whereby groundwater removes substances by dissolving them and moving them to lower horizons
true
quiz question: The presence of wings in bats and birds is a result of convergent evolution.
true
quiz question: true or false: Mutation is a random force in evolution that produces genetic variation independently of the fitness consequences of the genetic change for the individual that bears the mutation.
true
quiz question: Permafrost or gelisol is a defining characteristic of
tundra
quiz question: Which biome occurs at the highest altitude?
tundra
quiz question: At what average temperatures do we see the greatest variation in precipitation among biomes?
warm temperatures (approximately 20° to 30°C)
quiz question: Which terrestrial biome do highly drought-tolerant grasses and woody shrubs typically dominate?
woodland / shrub land