Instructions:  This review is worth 160 points (20% of your course grade) and will be due on Wednesday, 5/15/01.  No exceptions, and late finals will result in at least a 10% deduction.  You may not consult any references or any other person while working on this review.  Your signature at the bottom of the last page signifies that the work is yours alone and is pledged under the Honor Code.  When you break the seal on the envelope you will have four hours to complete the review!  Please print legibly; I can only grade what I can read!  Alternatively, you may type your answers, but that doesn’t mean you can lengthen your answers.  If you choose to do this, turn in both this review and the typed answers.

For each question or part, limit your answers to the space allotted below the question.  Any part of your answer outside of the space provided will not be graded.

1.      Answer both of the following questions (5 points each = 10 pts).  Note: here a determinant is a factor that determines what biome occurs in a specific location.

a.   List three primary determinants of terrestrial biomes.

b.   List three primary determinants of aquatic biomes.

2.      Select one type of grass-dominated biome and one type of tree-dominated biome.  Identify your choices, and then compare/contrast the climates, the dominant vegetation, and adaptations of that vegetation to the climate of those biomes (10 pts).

3.      Describe a simple method that can be used to determine whether competition for a resource is occurring between two species (6 pts).

4.      Use two specific life history traits as examples to illustrate how microevolutionary processes may affect those traits (8 pts).

5.      What is the Principle of Competitive Exclusion (5 pts)?

6.      Briefly describe two examples that illustrate the connections between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems (8 pts).

7.      What are the consequences (briefly describe 2) to food webs and/or individual species of eutrophication (natural or cultural) in lakes (8 pts)?

8.      Explain the importance of three of the following factors when considering metapopulations (12 pts).  Limit yourself to one sentence per factor.

9.      Compare/contrast plants to animals in relation to the historical colonization of land.  Address this statement by identifying two problems associated with the colonization of land, and listing 1-2 adaptations evolved by plants and animals to solve each problem (10 pts).

10.  For each of the following graphs, answer the associated questions.  There are 5 questions in this section, each worth 4 pts = 20 points.

a.       What is the biological mechanism behind the trend in Figure 1, and what is the implication for the population?

b.      What is the utility of studying a theoretical population growth curve such as the one in Figure 1?

c.       What is the carrying capacity for the population in Figure 2, and what is the biological meaning of carrying capacity?

d.      If Figure 2 represented the theoretical growth rate for a population of fish prior to humans harvesting them, what suggestions would you give to fishermen to maintain a maximum sustainable yield?

e.       What biological phenomenon might produce the curve in Figure 3?

11.  Define keystone species and give an example of how one might affect community structure (i.e., the composition of species in a community) (8 pts).

12.  Although no one in our class studied the effects of heavy metals on goldfish respiration, it is known that metal ions interfere with fish gill function by binding to gills.  Design an experiment to test the effects of varying metal concentrations (use Aluminum, Al⁺³) on goldfish respiration.  Use only an OUTLINE form to list your materials, methods, treatments, controls, and other conditions.  DO NOT write an essay (10 pts).

13.  You’re a conservation biologist on a team working to set up an ecological preserve.  The team is discussing the SLOSS debate.  Choose a side in the debate and support your choice using concepts from ecology and evolutionary biology.  Your task is to state your conservation goal and convince me of the best way to design the preserve to achieve that goal (10 points).

14.  Food webs are thought by some ecologists to be the central concept around which the entire science of ecology should revolve.  Support or refute this idea, in outline form, using ideas, concepts, and examples from the individual, community, and ecosystem levels of the biological hierarchy (10 pts). 

15.  Select one biogeochemical cycle and use a schematic drawing to illustrate that element’s major reservoirs, forms, and processes that affect it.  Use at least two of each to illustrate the cycle, and indicate one way that humans are disrupting the cycle (10 pts). 

16.  Lake Victoria, in Africa, is a large, deep, isolated lake that contains hundreds of species of cichlid fishes found nowhere else (they’re endemic).  They are threatened by the introduction of a top predator, the Nile Perch.  Many Lake Victoria cichlids have reduced population sizes or have become extinct.  Use specific concepts from Biology 112 that you identify to explain, in OUTLINE: 1) the high proportion of endemic species, 2) why the cichlids might be succumbing to the Nile Perch, and 3) what we need to know or do to preserve the remaining species (15 pts).

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