Sample Questions
1. What are the three major processes of evolution? How do they interact with
each other?
2. How does natural selection explain adaptation?
3. What is the difference between absolute fitness and relative fitness? Why is a
knowledge of relative fitness insufficient for predicting the evolutionary fate of a
species?
4. What is population regulation? What kind of factors may bring about
population regulation. Which of these are density-dependent? Which of these are
not? Why?
5. Discuss, using an example, what obligate mutualism is. Explain how it is
different from obligate commensalism.
6. If a species is involved in obligate mutualism, why does its endangerment
potentially raise a more serious risk for biological conservation than the
endangerment of a species which is not involved in such an interaction? How is
the situation different with commensalism?
7. How does ecosystem modeling conceive of a habitat differently than
population ecological modeling?
8. Explain why population ecology alone, without paying attention to the
idiosyncracies of habitat, may not furnish enough information to design effective
biological conservation strategies.
9. What is biogeography? Why is it important for biological conservation?
10. What are the seven major biogeographic regions of the world? On what basis
are they distinguished? Why are they different? Which ones do Wallace’s line
separate? Which has the least biological diversity?
11. Has biological diversity varied over time? How?
12. Why is the protection of endangered species not identical to the protection of
biodiversity?
13. Explain clearly what is meant by alpha-diversity, beta-diversity and gammadiversity.
14. What is an endangered biological phenomenon? Give an example of one. Do
such phenomena pose special problems for biodiversity conservation? Why?
15. Why is species diversity not a fully satisfactory measure of biodiversity?
16. What are the problems with treating species as the only units of
conservation?
17. Which of the models of high tropical diversity are consistent with each other?
Which are not? Why? Which explain speciation? Which explain persistence?
Which explain both?
18. Is extinction a natural part of evolution? If so, why should we worry about
extinction?
19. Why are extinction rates hard to estimate? Why might the rate obtained from
the fossil record not accurately reflect the rate for all species?
20. Given an example where environmental stochasticity interacts with a natural
catastrophe to drive a population to extinction. Explain clearly which
developments are due to environmental stochasticity and which are to be
regarded as constituting a random natural catastrophe. Explain how a natural
catastrophe is different from an event that is an instance of environmental
stochasticity.
21. What is the background extinction rate? Why cannot the difference between
the background extinction rate and the present extinction rate be used to infer
that we are in a biodiversity crisis (mass extinction)?
22. Explain clearly the difference between deterministic and stochastic factors
responsible for extinction. Give real or hypothetical example of an interaction
between a deterministic and a stochastic factor.
23. Distinguish clearly between intrinsic value and instrumental value? What is
the general reason why humans have intrinsic value? What are some potential
problems with extending the notion of intrinsic value to non-humans?
24. Give one argument for extending intrinsic value to individual higher animals.
Why is it problematic to extend this argument to species?
25. What is the relation between wilderness preservation and biodiversity
conservation? Are they the same? Do they always agree? Do they ever agree?
26. What are some of the problems with deep ecology that make it questionably
as a foundation for biodiversity conservation?
27. Why do many people not find economic arguments fully satisfying as a
reason for conserving biodiversity?
28. What is transformative value? How is it different from economic value?
29. How is aesthetic value different from ethical value? How is aesthetic value
related to transformative value?
30. Do transformative values provide an adequate rationale for biodiversity
conservation? Why?