Exam 1: Ecology and How to Do It

You are working on a project in a desert that has never been explored and you want to determine what species of insects interact with one another.You need to first learn what species are found in the ecosystem you will study.Therefore,you start by going to your site and making _______.

The process of ______ is due to an excess of nutrient input.

An annual plant:

If ecologists study the distribution,abundance and productivity of mosquitoes so that they can develop pesticides or ways to effectively manage West Nile virus,they can be considered what type of ecologist?

You compile a model to test how dissolved carbon dioxide levels are affecting calcium deposition in the Pacific Ocean as a result of climate change.Your model indicates that many species relying on carbonate for shell deposition will not be able to survive due to the projected future changes in dissolved carbon dioxide levels as a result of climate change.What is the likely conclusion to draw from this result?

One reason to randomly sample is because:

You want to understand the birth rate of a salamander population.To understand the mechanistic reason associated with this salamander species birth rate,you would need to:

Ecological phenomena occur at a variety of scales.These scales may include which of the following?

You have gathered historical data on the prevalence of a pathogen throughout a population of bats.You have also learned the dynamics of transmission and the rate of infection.You want to know how this pathogen may spread to other colonies of bats adjacent to the population you are studying.What might be a good way to do this?

Pure science is:

Using Figure 1.4,which of the following statements are accurate?

You have collected data on the body temperature and bite force of more than 100 iguanas on a recent research trip to Costa Rica.This is triple the data that most researchers ever get! You use these data to test if iguanas with higher body temperatures can bite harder.You generate a mean and look at your data relative to that mean.Many data points are consistent and fall within 1 standard deviations of the mean.You might expect your standard error to be:

The ______ is comprised of the community together with the physical environment.

Statistics assigns ______ to an event as a way to predict if an event is expected to occur.

You work on a research project to test what happens to a species of fish as dissolved oxygen levels decrease.You find that the fish becomes lethargic because cells are deprived of the necessary oxygen levels they need.This is an example of what kind of scientific explanation?

There is a 100 square meter rectangular meadow that has a rare plant growing throughout it.This plant species is used by a butterfly species as food and land managers are worried that the population of this plant may be too low to sustain the butterfly.Since there are no data about the abundance or density of this plant,you need to sample this field to determine its density and abundance.To best sample it,you should:

There are important factors that influence the p-value.These may include:

______ are use to express variability around the mean and to estimate the true mean value.

You design an experiment to test how ultraviolet radiation effects the development of a species of frog tadpoles.You set up your experiment so that there are 50 replicates,instead of only 10.Why is it a good idea to have so many replicates?

You complete a rigorous scientific study of salinity levels and its affect on the speed of a species of fish inhabiting brackish water.You plot salinity level on the x axis and fish speed on the y axis and see that as salinity increases so does fish speed.Much of your data fall very close to the trend line and your p-value is 0.01 after carrying out a statistical test.This would mean that: