BISC 003: Exam #2 Study Guide
Exam #2 Study Guide
1. Know definitions for terms and concepts in the vocabulary list.
2. Be able to recognize examples of primary and secondary succession.
3. Know examples of natural disturbance and manmade disturbances to ecosystems. What kinds of impacts do disturbances have on an ecosystem?
4. How are diversity and resilience related?
5. How does man contribute to ecosystem degradation?
6. Be able to recognize the difference between examples of finite versus renewable resources.
7. Know the eight ecosystems service presented in lecture.
8. When is a fish population at its maximum size for harvest; re. maximum sustainable yield.
9. What is meant by “tragedy of the commons”? What are two reasons why commons become over-exploited? What is regulated access to commons, and how does it work?
10. What conditions of damaged ecosystems make restoration ecology approaches difficult.
11. What are differences between wilderness, parks and refuges? What are private land trusts and how do they acquire the land they manage?
12. Why is deforestation increasing on a global scale? Which types of countries are largely responsible (developed or developing)?
13. What are the environmental impacts of deforestation?
14. What principle guide sustainable forest management? An what are the some of the new forestry practices that favor these principles?
15. What is the impetus (underlying reasons) to clear rainforests, and what value do they have for conservation?
16. What needs to happen in fisheries management for us to reach a total allowable catch of 100 million metric tons on a sustainable basis?
17. Is the size of our fishing fleets and efficiency of its technology too great for the availability of fish? Explain why.
18. What was the objective of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (1976), and what were some consequences? What changes were made to it in 1996 under the Sustainable Fisheries Act?
19. What are mangroves, where are they found, and what good are they for marine ecosystems and man? Why are they getting cleared by man?
20. What are coral reefs, where are they found, and what good are they for marine ecosystems and man? Why, by what, are they threatened (four big reasons)?
21. What is the global human population, and what are reasons for its explosion over the past 150 years? What is meant by the human population “no longer being in dynamic equilibrium, i.e. biotic potential has overcome aspects of environmental resistance?
22. Characterize high, medium, and low income countries, where they are and what portion of global wealth they represent relative to their portion of human population. Be able to categorize a country by income class based on characteristics of diet transport and materials use.
23. What are the consequences of population growth in developing countries?
24. Is absolute poverty a choice; what characterizes it?
25. Know how to read and interpret a population profile and forecast the future population profile based on total fertility rates greater or equal to the replacement level fertility (i.e. ≤ 2), versus a high total fertility rate of about 5.
26. Given the relationship between total fertility rate and in-come for countries and the relationship between total fertility rates and contraception use, what relationship would you anticipate between country income and contraception use? Which parameters are higher in developing countries as compared to developed countries?
27. Why does the epidemiological transition occur prior to the fertility transition? How does this difference result in greater population growth rate? Have many regions of the world made the demographic transition from primitive stable population to modern stable population?
28. What are the three elements that participate in the poverty cycle and how do these interact? Why do the poor continue to have such a high fertility rates?
29. Social development address three problems by focusing attention on five mane aspects of society, which are the problems addressed and which are the aspects needed?
30. Recognize differences in primary and secondary energy. Which energy sources were used in early history versus those developed over the 100 years? Which are renewable versus finite?
31. How would it not be very efficient to use electric heat for your house. How cogeneration be a far superior strategy?
32. How are fossil fuels formed and how long did this take compared to how fast we can burn them up?
33. At about what years do recent estimates of the Hubbart curve places maximum global oil production? Where are most of the proven oil reserves in the world?
34. What factors changed during the period of high oil prices in the early 1980’s? What happened by the 1990’s to present due to cheaper oil imports?
35. Give reasons why we shouldn’t depend on foreign oil. Is the price per barrel the actual total cost for securing and transporting foreign oil to the US?
36. Will coal last longer than oil and natural gas; by how much? What are environmental problems to coal burning?
37. What are some ways to conserve electricity?
Exam #2 Vocabulary List
BISC 003: Exam #2 Study Guide
equilibrium theory,
first principle of ecosystem sustainability
second principle of ecosystem sustainability
third principle of ecosystem sustainability
biotic potential,
environmental resistance,
intraspecific competition,
primary succession,
secondary succession,
aquatic succession,
disturbance,
resilience,
climax ecosystem,
resilience mechanisms,
fourth sustainability principle,
fifth principle of ecosystem sustainability,
carrying capacity,
ecosystem goods,
ecosystem services,
renewable resource,
finite resource,
wetlands,
conservation,
preservation,
total allowable catch,
maximum sustainable yield,
consumptive use,
productive use,
restoration ecology,
“commons”,
private land trust,
National Wilderness,
National Wildlife Refuge,
National Park,
National Forest,
frontier forest,
secondary growth forest,
sustainable forest management,
deforestation,
clear cutting,
desertification,
evapotranspiration,
ecotourism,
extractive reserves,
carbon sequestration credits,
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ),
by-catch,
coral bleaching,
shrimp aquaculture,
eutrophication,
mangrove,
coral reef,
marine sanctuary,
population growth rate,
absolute growth,
total fertility rate,
replacement level fertility = 2,
population profile,
epidemiological transition,
fertility transition,
demographic transition,
crude birth rate,
crude death rate,
primitive stability,
modern stability,
credit associations,
contraceptive,
primary energy source,
secondary energy source,
fossil fuels,
OPEC,
strip-mining,
acid mine drainage,
cogeneration.