BIOL 211 | Spring 2025
BIOL 211: Exam 4 Study Guide
In preparing for the upcoming BIOL 211 exam, please make sure that you review all the concepts
that we’ve covered so far in the course. This includes information presented in the lectures, as
well as the practice problems from the lectures and the self-assessment quizzes.
The exam will consist of multiple-choice questions and short response questions. Answers for the
short response questions should be 3-5 complete sentences that show your detailed scientific
thinking on the topic. The topics and questions listed below are intended to help you review your
knowledge. The questions on the exam will require you to synthesize what you know and apply
it in different situations.
You will be responsible for all the material covered in Lectures 1-24 – this is a cumulative exam.
You do not need to learn details of examples, but you should know the major concepts below.
This is meant as a study guide to get you focusing on concepts we have been learning in class.
The questions below are intended to help you review your knowledge of the major concepts
we have learned in this course for Lectures 1-20. You do not need to learn details of examples,
but you should know the major concepts below.
1. How can we read phylogenetic trees to make inferences about evolutionary relationships and
derived traits?
2. How do we describe monophyletic, paraphyletic, and polyphyletic groups and depict them
on phylogenetic trees?
3. What are the similarities and differences between prokaryotes and eukaryotes?
4. Which domains and kingdoms are prokaryotes and which are eukaryotes?
5. What traits distinguish protists from other kingdoms?
6. What traits distinguish plants from other kingdoms?
7. How do plants acquire what they need to gain biomass?
8. What traits distinguish the fungi kingdom from other kingdoms?
9. How do mycorrhizae and plants benefit from their mutualistic relationship?
10. What traits distinguish the animal kingdom from other kingdoms?
11. How do ectotherms and endotherms thermoregulate?
12. What happens to red blood cells in hypertonic, isotonic, and hypotonic solutions?
13. How do humans regulate blood glucose levels?
14. What are evolutionary advantages of having a four-chambered heart?
15. What happens at the cellular level within an axon during each stage of an action potential?
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BIOL 211 | Spring 2025
Questions You Should be Able to Answer:
Why is ecology important?
1. What is ecology?
2. What are the levels of ecological organization?
3. What kind of research questions do ecologists ask?
4. What is a species?
5. What is a population and what are examples of populations?
6. What is biogeography?
7. What is the difference between endemic and generalist species?
8. Why do isolated regions have more endemic species?
9. What abiotic factors constrain populations?
10. What causes seasons?
11. How does climate change with the seasons?
Why is population ecology important?
1. What is population ecology?
2. What determines how populations are dispersed in space?
3. What are the three survivorship curves?
4. What is exponential growth?
5. What are the assumptions for the exponential population growth model?
6. What is logistic population growth?
7. What are the assumptions for the logistic population growth model?
8. How does carrying capacity limit population sizes?
9. How can we graph the exponential and logistic growth models?
10. What happens to the birth and death rates as population size approaches carrying capacity?
11. How does parental care influence species populations?
12. How does reproduction strategy and parental care influence the likelihood of offspring survival?
13. Why are there tradeoffs between offspring number and biological parent survival?
Why is community ecology important?
1. What is a community?
2. What is community ecology?
3. What is the difference between species richness and species evenness?
4. What is species diversity and how can we identify which communities have higher species
diversity?
5. How do foundation species and ecosystem engineers influence ecological communities?
6. How do keystone species influence species diversity in ecological communities?
7. How do mutualisms, predation, herbivory, parasitism, and competition influence the survival,
reproduction, and population dynamics of the species involved?
8. How does competition impact the distribution of species?
9. What are the differences between realized and fundamental niches?
10. How does competition impact the niches of competing species?
11. What are disturbance events?
12. What are the differences between primary and secondary succession?
13. What is the intermediate disturbance hypothesis?
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BIOL 211 | Spring 2025
Why is ecosystem ecology important?
1. What is an ecosystem?
2. What is ecosystem ecology?
3. Where does energy in an ecosystem come from?
4. How do top down vs. bottom up processes influence populations?
5. How are feeding relationships depicted in ecological communities?
6. What are the different trophic levels of a food web?
7. How do primary producers increase in biomass?
8. What is the difference between gross primary production and net primary production?
9. What is secondary production and how does it create new biomass?
10. How much chemical energy is available to consumers in ecosystems?
11. Why is the transfer of chemical energy through a food web inefficient?
12. How can we depict the transfer of chemical energy through a food web?
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BIOL 211 | Spring 2025
Concept Words You Should Be Able to Define, Understand, and Use…
Ecology
Biotic
Abiotic
Population
Natural selection
Evolution
Heritable traits
Fitness
Adaptations
Seasons
Population ecology
Uniform distribution
Random distribution
Clumped distribution
Type I survivorship curve
Type II survivorship curve
Type III survivorship curve
Exponential growth model
Logistic growth model
Carrying capacity
r selected species
K selected species
Community
Community ecology
Species richness
Species evenness
Relative abundance
Species diversity
Foundation species
Ecosystem engineer
Keystone species
Food webs
Trophic levels
Primary producer
Herbivore
Carnivore
Consumer
Mutualism
Predation
Herbivory
Parasitism
Competition
Realized niche
Fundamental niche
Ecological release
Resource partitioning
Ecosystem
Ecosystem ecology
Primary production
Gross primary production
Net primary production
Secondary production
Biomass
Assimilation
Energy pyramids
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