Exam 56: Conservation Biology and Global Change

What is the biggest problem with selecting a site for a reserve?

Which of the following observations provides the best evidence of a biodiversity crisis?

Which of the following outcomes is caused by excessive nutrient runoff into aquatic ecosystems?

The main purpose of movement corridors is to ________.

If all individuals in the last remaining population of a particular frog species were all highly related, which type of diversity would be of greatest concern when planning to prevent the species from going extinct?

Which of the following is a consequence of biological magnification?

Which of the following statements regarding extinction is accurate?

Agricultural lands frequently require nutrient augmentation because ________.

Eutrophication is often caused by excess limiting-nutrient runoff from agricultural fields into aquatic ecosystems. This process results in massive algal blooms that eventually die and decompose, ultimately depleting the dissolved oxygen, killing large numbers of fish and other aquatic organisms. Predict which of the following human actions would best address the problem of eutrophication near agricultural areas?

Use the following graph and information to answer the question. Flycatcher birds that migrate from Africa to Europe feed their chicks a diet that is almost exclusively moth caterpillars. The graph shows the peak dates of flycatcher arrival in Europe, bird hatching, and peak caterpillar season for the years 1980 and 2000. The y-axis is a measure of the abundance of birds, hatching chicks, and caterpillars. The shift in the peak of caterpillar season is most likely due to ________.

Your friend is wary of environmentalists' claims that global warming could lead to major biological change on Earth. Which of the following statements can you use in response to your friend's suspicions?

Which of the following strategies would most rapidly increase the genetic diversity of a population in an extinction vortex?

During the inventory of bacterial genes present in the Sargasso Sea, a deep isolated area in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a research team concluded that at least 1,800 bacterial species were present. Based on what you might predict about the habitat structure of such an area, what kind of bacterial diversity would you expect to see in tropical coral reef waters?

Suppose you attend a town meeting at which some experts tell the audience that they have performed a cost-benefit analysis of a proposed transit system that would probably reduce overall air pollution and fossil fuel consumption. The analysis, however, reveals that ticket prices will not cover the cost of operating the system when fuel, wages, and equipment are taken into account. As a biologist, you know that if ecosystem services had been included in the analysis, the experts might have arrived at a different answer. Why are ecosystem services rarely included in economic analyses?

Which of the following factors causes extremely high levels of toxic chemicals in fish-eating birds?

Burning fossil fuels releases oxides of sulfur and nitrogen. These air pollutants can be responsible for ________.

A parasitic fungus, Geomyces destructans, has decimated millions of bats in the United States since it was first observed in upstate New York in 2006. The disease has been named white-nose syndrome because of the white fungal hyphae that cover the bat upon infection. It is believed that this fungus was introduced from Europe by tourists entering into caves with hibernating bat populations. Which prediction most likely reflects changes that will occur in natural communities as a result of massive bat mortality?

The main cause of the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere over the past 150 years is ________.

What is a critical load?

Ecosystem services include processes that increase the quality of the abiotic environment. Which of the following processes would fall under this category?