Deck 4: Ecological and Evolutionary Principles of Marine Biology

Question 1

Which is the correct order of categories by inclusiveness?

A) Population, ecosystem, community, individual
B) Individual, ecosystem, population, community
C) Individual, population, community, ecosystem
D) None of the above

Answer 1

C

Question 2

If a forager spends time feeding in one of several patches, and can move from patch to patch,

A) It should stay in the patch until all the resource is exhausted and then travel to the nearest patch
B) It should know the number of patches and stay in the patch less time if there are more patches
C) It should stay longer in a patch if the travel time to another patch is increased
D) It should stay less time in a patch if the food in the next patch is going to be a long trip

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Diet breadth of a consumer will increase when

A) Food abundance decreases
B) The food that is lowest in quality decreases
C) Food abundance increases
D) A predator of the consumer declines in abundance

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Prey having toxic chemical are often brightly colored because

A) The toxic compound is usually brightly colored
B) Most prey species with toxic substances are tropical and the color is coincidental
C) The color is a warning given by the victim to never eat the next prey individual when it sees one
D) Predators have attacked a brightly colored poisonous individual and associate color with poison

Question 5

Substances used by organisms as poisons to deter predators are often known as

A) Refuges
B) Secondary compounds
C) Fatty acids
D) Hormones

Question 6

Prey animals have inducible defenses

A) Because they can get rid of the defenses once the predator goes away
B) Because they can instantaneously produce the defense
C) Because there may be a cost to making the defense, so the defense is best unused unless a predator is present
D) All of the above

Question 7

Batesian mimics

A) Produce a poison after a predator attempts to eat them
B) Look like a model species that is poisonous, but are not poisonous themselves
C) Are members of a group of poisonous species that resemble each other.
D) Look like a model that is itself a perfect match to the background color of the environment in which it lives

Question 8

A series of populations that are interconnected, with some receiving individuals dispersing from others, is known as a

A) Source population
B) Island group population
C) Metapopulation
D) Interdispersing population

Question 9

A metapopulation will likely increase in population size over time if

A) The number of sinks steadily increases
B) Dispersal from subpopulation sites increases
C) Dispersal between sources increases
D) Dispersal shuts down

Question 10

The following best describes a commensal interaction

A) ++
B) 00
C) -
D) +0

Question 11

What is a problem with an obligatory mutualistic interaction between two species?

A) If one species becomes extinct, then so must the other
B) If one species evolves, then the other might have to evolve to adjust to the first species
C) If one is vulnerable to a predator, then so might the other be
D) All of the above

Question 12

Parasites

A) Usually have reduced gonads and very low reproductive rates
B) Are usually fatal to their hosts
C) Usually have well developed reproductive organs
D) Have only one host, to which they are very faithful

Question 13

Parasitic species are vulnerable to population fluctuations because

A) They usually only reproduce in winter
B) They depend on several host species
C) Their host species tend to be rare
D) They always suffer owing to global warming

Question 14

An example of a renewable resource would be

A) Bacteria
B) Temperature
C) Petroleum hydrocarbons
D) Salinity

Question 15

A uniform spatial distribution is usually a reflection of

A) Exploitation of the same food
B) Uniform probability of being in a given place
C) Territoriality
D) Mutualism

Question 16

A foundation species

A) Dominates the community at the beginning of succession
B) Comes to dominate the community at climax
C) Always physically supports all other species
D) Provides a structural feature crucial to the overall composition and structure of the community

Question 17

A strong competing species

A) Tends to increase standing diversity of competitors
B) Always reduces the effectiveness of predators
C) Might attract a common predator
D) None of the above

Question 18

A marine predator

A) Is likely to decrease the number of species in a community
B) Might under some circumstances maintain high diversity in a community
C) Will inevitably drive to extinction the rarest prey species
D) Always will be rarer than all prey species

Question 19

Which of the following hierarchies is correct?

A) Species, genus, order, family, class, phylum
B) genus, species, family, class, order, phylum
C) Species, genus, order, phylum, class
D) Species, genus, family, order, class, phylum

Question 20

Alternate genes at a locus that have different phenotypic effects are known as

A) Dominants
B) Phenotypes
C) Alleles
D) Chromosomes

Question 21

A cline is a

A) Great change of temperature with depth
B) Spatial change in population density
C) Gradual change in time of body temperature
D) Spatial change in gene frequency

Question 22

Sibling species are always

A) Found on either side of a barrier, such as Panama
B) Easy to identify
C) Quite similar, but rarely closely related
D) Quite similar, and very closely related

Question 23

Province borders are often determined by

A) Coastal geographic barriers
B) Breaks in temperature
C) Oceanic barriers to shallow water species
D) All of the above

Question 24

Two individuals with the same phenotype

A) Must be of the same genotype
B) Must have the same alleles at some genetic locus
C) Must be living in the same environment
D) May be different genotypes

Question 25

Predation and disturbance both have the following similar effects on community structure

A) They both inevitably increase the number of coexisting species
B) At high disturbance and predation intensity, the number of species increases
C) At modest disturbance and predation intensity, the number of predatory species increases
D) At modest disturbance and predation intensity, the number of competing prey species increases

Question 26

The best way to demonstrate the effects of interspecific competition is

A) Watch competing species and wait for one to displace another
B) Perform an experiment: Add large numbers of predators
C) Perform an experiment: Remove one of the hypothetical competing species
D) Look for negative correlations in abundance between one species and another from place to place

Question 27

Coexistence of species in a community may occur when

A) Predators are present
B) Species are exploiting different resources
C) Mortality is random and several species are colonizing randomly into a community
D) All of the above

Question 28

Species occurring relatively late in succession are

A) Relatively poor colonizers
B) Have low resistance to predators because predators are gone by this stage of succession
C) Always present a fixed time after a disturbance occurs
D) All of the above

Question 29

In a food web, plants are also known as

A) Saprophytes
B) Tertiary producers
C) Primary producers
D) Ecosystems

Question 30

In order to estimate primary productivity in an ecosystem by sampling

A) One needs to know biomass only
B) One needs to know biomass and the time scale only
C) One needs to know the amount produced and time only
D) None of the above

Question 31

A group of species exploiting a similar type of resource is known as a

A) Successional series
B) Guild
C) Trait-mediated indirect interaction
D) None of the above

Question 32

The reduction of seaweeds when predators of urchins decline and urchins increase is known as

A) Facilitation
B) A direct effect
C) A density-mediated indirect interaction
D) A trait-mediated direct interaction

Question 33

A trophic cascade exists when

A) There are strong effects in members of different levels of a food chain, when one level is changed substantially.
B) One level responds strongly when a member of another trophic level disappears
C) Top-down effects are strong
D) All of the above