Exam 53: The Physical Environment and Biogeography of Life

Ocean topography nearshore is flat and sloped, forming the continental shelf.Farther from shore, the continental shelf drops off steeply to abyssal environments that are several miles deep.Which characteristic is not present in these open ocean zones that include pelagic, benthic, and abyssal environments?

Alfred Russel Wallace was associated with the discovery of all of these factors related to biogeography except:

Which statement best describes the distinction between weather and climate?

Ecologists in the twenty-first century are more concerned with which type of study than were their counterparts in previous centuries?

Refer to the graph, which models the theory of island biogeography. The intersection points of the immigration and extinction curves on the graph represent points where, for that type of island,

The city of Los Angeles is on the coast and very near sea level.During a summer heat wave, several days of still weather allow heat and pollution to collect over the city and remain there, resulting in very high smog levels.This situation results from a(n)

Lovejoy and his colleagues studied Amazon rainforest fragments of 1, 10, and 100 hectares in size.They wanted to determine how large a fragment had to be to sustain species diversity.Which conclusion can be drawn from their results?

A new river cuts through the range of a species of terrestrial isopods, effectively ending gene flow between populations on either side and resulting in speciation.The process at work in this situation is

An ecologist is studying predatorprey and competition interactions in a forest.He is working at the _______ level of organization.

A trench in the open ocean is 15,000 feet deep.It contains a thriving, diverse ecosystem of living organisms.This ecosystem is most likely possible because

Refer to the figure below. How is species diversity likely to differ on the four types of islands shown on the map? Explain your answer.

The Walter climate diagram below suggests a _______ biome characterized by _______.

Scientists want to learn more about the ecology of a specific geographical region.In a study of the region, an ecologist is likely to do all of the following except

Applying the concept of continental drift, if scientists find the same types of fossil pollen in New Zealand and South America, they would probably conclude that

Refer to the diagram below. Tropical seasonal forest climates have a very wet season and a very dry season.Temperatures are above 64°F (18°C) every month.They would most likely be located within which latitude range?

Most of Earth's great deserts are located around which latitude?

The amount of solar energy reaching a given unit of Earth's surface depends primarily on the

The biome named for its dominant trees, which lose their leaves, and having cold winters and warm summers, is the _______ biome.

When solar radiation strikes Earth, it passes through the most atmosphere if it strikes in _______ regions.

Alpha, beta, and gamma diversity can be used to describe species diversity and composition in terms of their