Study Guide for Test 6
Evolution and Ecology
Chapter 17 (with parts of 18, 19 & 20)
Chapter 23 (with parts of 21 and 22)
1. Be able to explain or define these terms: ecology, biosphere, biome, rain shadow,
2. Why do large bodies of water moderate the temperature of nearby land areas?
3. What is a biome? What are most terrestrial biomes named for?
4. What is the difference in an introduced and an invasive species? Be able to give examples of both that are found here in FL
5. What is a population? What are population size and population density? How are populations and communities related?
6. Be able to recognize and distinguish between exponential and logistic growth.
7. When does exponential growth occur? When does logistic growth occur? Which of these does the human population most closely resemble?
8. Explain why two different populations of the same species in different locations can have different growth rates.
9. What is the carrying capacity? What usually happens to a population’s growth rate as it approaches the carrying capacity for that population?
10. What happens to a population if it grows so rapidly that it passes the carrying capacity without slowing to a logistic-type curve?
11. What is a population cycle?
12. How many types of populations are involved in a cycle?
13. What causes a population cycle?
14. What is bioaccumulation? Why did using DDT on mosquitoes affect the number of bald eagles?
15. What is a community?
16. What are the two factors used to determine diversity in a community
17. Why are diverse communities more resistant to disease and pests
18. What is a producer? What is a consumer?
19. What is a trophic level? What is the highest trophic level in most ecosystems?
20. Which trophic level will have the highest levels of chemicals that bioaccumulate?
21. How much of their food energy do most organisms use to build new body parts
22. Why do most food chains stop at the trophic level of the tertiary or quaternary consumer?
23. Why would a giant organism like a blue whale feed on tiny little krill that are low on the food chain?
24. What is an apex predator
25. What is the difference between a food chain and a food web
26. What are the three types of symbiosis?
27. Which type of symbiosis benefits one organism and has little or no effect on the other organism?
28. Be able to list several ways that parasites with multiple hosts can increase the chance of spreading from the first host to the second host
29. What is a niche?
30. What is competitive exclusion?
31. What is niche partitioning?
32. Give examples of two induced defenses that herbivores can cause in plants
33. What is the goal of cryptic color (camouflage) What is the goal of warning coloration
34. Be able to list the two types of mimicry
35. Which type of mimicry is a warning? Which type of mimicry is a bluff?
36. What happens to an ecosystem if you remove a keystone species?