Exam 10: Patterns in Species Richness

You have assessed species richness in the tropics using 15 plots,each approximately 10 km by 10 km,spread over an entire region.Let us assume each plot is a community.Which of the following statements is likely correct?

You are interested in comparing diversity between two different regions each with many communities.Which term would you use to describe this?

According to the predictions that make up the theory of island biogeography,how long does it take for species to reach equilibrium?

An organism has been discovered that appears to forego metabolizing phosphorous to instead metabolize arsenic.Phosphorous is essential to all living things.Why might this organism have evolved a way to metabolize arsenic in place of phosphorous?

Diversity indices take into account

According to the theory of island biogeography,how would the number of species found on a small island far from mainland compare to a larger island or a similar sized island that is closer to mainland?

Deep sea communities of gastropods and bivalve mollusk species rely on which of the following as a resource?

Species richness can be influenced by climatic factors that vary spatially.One hypothesis explains how environmental temperature may affect a community of organisms.Which hypothesis is this?

If a phylogenetic analysis shows that an assemblage of species is closely related,but only one of the species has evolved drastically different morphology that is known to be extremely costly,then why might this one species have evolved such a distinct trait?

In which of the two examples of a community is species richness greater: A community with 100 species that can all be found equally within a 25 km radius of the area,or a community spread across the same area that has 100 species,in which 5% of the individuals are rare species.

In theory,the number of plant species _____________ as the size of islands increases.

Experiments performed in the rocky intertidal zone by Robert Paine showed that the experimental removal of a predator had dramatic consequences to the structure of the community.What was the ultimate conclusion of this study?

It would be most difficult for a species to invade a community where the resource utilization of current resident species ________________.

If you wanted to provide the most data for an audience about the species composition of a community and how it changes over time,which of the following would you use and why?

Assume that resources for a community of species are available on a continuum.A common species of bird utilizes a particular portion of this continuum.What term defines the length of the portion of resources that this bird uses?

You are comparing species richness across 10 square meter plots over an entire region of Indiana.Your data show that individual communities are not diverse and that the communities in the region do not differ.Of the following choices,which is the best conclusion?

Which of the following choices is a term that refers to diversity between communities?

Wildfires in Southern California occur much more frequently today than they did hundreds of years ago.This is thought to be decreasing local plant diversity.The theory that might best support this observation is ____________.

Species richness of fish in lakes:

When looking at a simple model of species richness based on a single resource,species richness may be determined by?