Ecology and Natural Selection Quiz

In-Class Exam Questions

• Questions are compiled from various sources, including TAs, instructors, and the web.
• These questions cover the first quarter of the semester's material and aim to help students review and self-assess their understanding.
• The questions are not an exhaustive study guide, and similar material may not appear on the exam.
• Questions are not repeated from past exams or during the same semester.

Multiple Choice Questions

• Question 1: A small yellow bird in a coniferous forest that only forages by the trunk, compared to a larger bird foraging on branches, exhibits a specific foraging tendency related to its niche or habitat. The tendency is an expression of its phenotype.
• Question 2: Natural selection occurs at the population level of ecological organization and involves the interplay between individuals, species, populations, and communities.
• Question 3: If the Earth spun in the opposite direction, the trade winds in the Northern Hemisphere would blow from the southeast to the northwest.

Additional Questions

• Question 4: Desert biomes are frequently found around 30 degrees North and South latitude due to trade winds, upwelling of cold ocean water, and the presence of many herbivores.
• Question 5: Fundamental niches are larger than realised niches. They are larger because fundamental niches don't account for limiting factors like climate, soil, abiotic factors (nonliving), biotic factors (living interactions) and evolutionary history.
• Question 6: A plane crash lands at 20 degrees North latitude in the Atlantic Ocean. The first country likely to be reached by the lifeboat, using the prevailing winds, is likely to be a western country like Great Britain.
• Question 7: In the Southern Hemisphere, a south wind will be deflected to the west.
• Question 8: Weather is a specific location's average annual rainfall and temperature that is currently happening.
• Question 9: The nutrient-poor soils of tropical rainforests are often a result of nutrients being rapidly used up by the diverse plant community there. 
• Question 10: The energy of the incident solar radiation decreases towards the poles due to the increased reflection and larger area covered at higher latitudes.
• Question 11: Soils that lack an O horizon are often found in deserts, where precipitation is low
• Question12: The solar equator is located at the Earth's equator.
• Question 13: Tropical seasonal forests/savannahs are biomes with distinct wet and dry seasons.
• Question 14: The correct order of processes in a Hadley cell: adiabatic warming and cooling, rising air, warm air displacing cooler air, adiabatic heating, and latent heat release.
• Question 15: Potential reasons for inverse density dependence (Allee effect) include increased intraspecific competition, inability to find a mate, competition for nest sites, and reduced food abundance.
• Question 16: Calculating the population change (lambda) of deer.
• Question 17: Intraspecific competition is the reason for density dependence and logistic models.
• Question 18: To maximize catch without decreasing the population, you should maintain a population that is close to the carrying capacity.
• Question 19: Orange-breasted sunbirds are endemic to the fynbos region of South Africa.
• Question 20: Camera traps provide the most useful information on mammals.
• Question 21: Forest patches within the Pacific Northwest are the realized niche of endangered frog species.
• Question 22: Plants competing intraspecifically for light are more likely to be evenly spaced.
• Question 23: Animals avoiding recapture will deflate estimates of population density.
• Question 24: Mark-recapture ratios represent the marked individuals to the total number of marked individuals in the recapture.
• Question 25: Ideal free distribution predicts that organisms will move to low-quality environments when the per capita benefit in both environments is equal.
• Question 26: K-selected species have characteristics like high parental investment, long lifespans and late sexual maturity, in comparison to r-selected species.
• Question 27: Having a large number of offspring can negatively alter the fitness of a parent for subsequent breeding seasons due to the increased energy expenditure required to feed offspring.
• Question 28: Lack's hypothesis suggests that bird parents should lay the number of eggs that yields the highest survival rate of offspring.
• Question 29: A mature female sockeye salmon swims 1,000 km to a breeding ground in a river in British Columbia. This migration behavior is an example of semelparity in life history.
• Question 30, 31 and on - Study notes for the short answer questions that follow

This quiz covers key concepts from the first quarter of the semester, focusing on ecology and natural selection. It includes multiple-choice questions designed to help you review your understanding of ecological organizations and foraging behavior. Prepare yourself for the exam with these thoughtfully compiled questions.