1. What evidence to researchers have that humans have impacted the worlds ecosystems at a
detrimental level in the past 50 years? Describe one of the studies and what it compares.
2. Why are the ecosystems on either side of a mountain different?
3. What factors affect both the hydrologic cycle and climate? Name the factors and describe
their affect.
4. What effect do Hadley cells have on global precipitation and will this effect increase or
decrease with rising global temperatures?
5. Explain Hadley Cell Circulation.
6. What is the general mechanism for the hadley cell circulation and how does it pertain to
influences in the environment?
7. Why might two sides of a mountain have drastically different rainfall patterns?
8. Why is there a sea breeze during the day and a land breeze at night?
9. Describe a service that dams provide to humans as well as a potential environmental
impact that build a dam can cause.
10. How do impervious surfaces impact the water cycle?
11. Water is vital to all of living organisms on the earth such as plants and humans. What are
the unique properties of water and what gives it the ability to stick to surfaces? Give an
example and explain why and how water plays a major role in the distribution of
organisms in different environments.
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What is chlorophyll and where is it synthesized?
What is the function of chlorophyll? and what are the elements it is made out of?
What is one way terrestrial plants adapt to very little light availability?
Distinguish the difference between primary and secondary production and how they are
important in the ecosystem
What are the factors control the rate of primary production on land and in the sea, and
how do they control that production?
Assuming ample water and sunlight, is terrestrial and aquatic primary production always
increased with the use of fertilizers?
Initial bottle: 5mg O2/L
Light bottle: 8 mgO2/L
Dark bottle: 4mgO2/L
What's the
NPP, Respiration, and GPP?
What happens to primary production when temperature decreases?
What's Liebig's law of the minimum?
D. Pauley’s 1995 publication Primary Production Necessary to Sustain Global Fisheries
provides convincing data refuting an earlier study that concluded that human influence on
the lowest trophic level in the oceans in minimal. Why is Pauley concerned with the
lowest tropic level? How might overfishing influence the lowest tropic level and what are
some possible long term consequences?
Give one example of primary production AND secondary production, and how are they
related?
Explain the Liebig's Law of the minimum and what role does it play in the rate of
primary production?
Explain how the plant defenses work and give an explanation as to why phytoplankton
does not have any of the defenses.
Explain what a limiting nutrient is and provide a brief example.
Give an example of a biome with relatively high productivity and explain two abiotic
factors that influence primary productivity
What is up-welling and what link does it have to primary production in our oceans.
Why is cold, deep water nutrient rich?
Biomes are mostly determined by annual precipitation and what other abiotic factor?
19. In terms of global NPP name the most productive systems that account for most of the
Primary productivity on earth.
20. Explain the difference between micro- and macroscale decomposition and the importance
of decomposition within an ecosystem.
21. Which has more productivity, the middle of a gyre or the coastline?
22. Name 5 of the changing conditions encompassed by the term "climate change". What are
the possible effects of these changes? How will they affect human populations?
23. What role does planetary albedo play in the global energy budget and how does it relate
to absorbed solar radiation?
24. Explain what is the greenhouse gas effect and why it is vital for life on the planet? Then
explain how human inputs can contribute to this effect and what impacts that could mean
for our planet
25. What is the difference between weather and climate?
26. What is O2 not a green house gas?
27. Why is CO2 a greenhouse gas?
28. Manmade chemicals like HFC and CFC abosorb light energy between 8-12 microns, why
does this make them extremely potent green house gasses?
29. What is a riparian ecosystem? Give a brief explanation as to why they have higher
productivity then surrounding ecosystems