Question | Answer |
Why are imported fruits and vegetables inspected? | If an insect is not native to the country of import, it could ruin the balance of the native ecosystem. |
Be ready to list trophic levels of given organisms. | Review food web |
Describe the ecological pyramid. Which two trophic levels have the greatest disparity in biomass? | The pyramid has four levels: producers on the bottom with the greatest biomass, then primary consumers, secondary consumers, and tertiary consumers on the top. Percent change is compared, so the primary and secondary consumers have greatest difference. |
Between which two levels of the ecological pyramid is the smallest amount of energy wasted? | Producers to primary consumers |
List and describe three symbiotic relationships. | Clownfish is protected by sea anemone while attracting food to it. Goby protects blind shrimp while shrimp provides a home for the goby. Oriental sweetlips gets its teeth cleaned by the blue-streak wrasse while feeding the wrasse. |
What fundamental assumption of macroevolution does mutualism seem to contradict? | Mutualism seems to contradict the idea that organisms always battle for survival. |
More water evaporates from the ocean than falls back in precipitation. Why doesn't it dry up? | The precipitation that falls on the land ends up back in the ocean via runoff. |
Besides balancing the water in an ecosystem, what does the water cycle accomplish? | Transports nutrients |
What is the possible consequence of deforestation in a watershed? | Too many nutrients could flow into the river or stream, throwing off the ecosystem. |
What are the principal means by which oxygen is taken from and returned to the air? | Principally, oxygen is taken from the air by respiration and returned by photosynthesis. |
In what other ways is oxygen removed from the air. | Fire, ozone formation, and rusting of metals and minerals |
In what other ways is oxygen restored to the air? | Ozone destruction and water vapor destruction |
How is carbon dioxide removed from the air? | Photosynthesis and dissolving in the ocean. |
How is carbon dioxide restored to the air? | Decomposition, fossil fuel burning, fire, and respiration |
What human activity worries those who think that global warming is a problem? | Fuel burning because it is a human-made way of adding more carbon dioxide to the air. |
Is human-produced global warming happening now? Why? | No. Measurable data indicate that warming occurred before humans started burning fuels in earnest. |
What is nitrogen fixation? | Process of converting nitrogen gas from the atmosphere into nitrogen-containing molecules that are useful to most organisms. |
In what two ways does the nitrogen in organisms get put back into the environment? | Waste of organisms and from the decomposers that feed on decaying remains. |
Draw an ecological pyramid with half as much biomass in tertiary consumers as secondary, half as much in secondary as primary, and half as much in primary as to producers. | The pyramid will have four levels, each one half the length as the one below it. |