Wildlife in the Modern World - ESRM 150
FINAL EXAM, DECEMBER 13TH, 2011
FORM B
Read questions carefully (each worth 3 points). Select ONE correct answer for each
question. Fill in your answers on the SCANTRON sheet with a #2 pencil. Read both sides of
each page. The exam is worth 200 points. Good luck!
Name: ___________________________________________________
1. Among these, the best example of K-selected species is:
a. European rabbits
b. Black-capped chickadee
c. Raccoon
d. African Elephant
e. Wood duck
2. In the discussion section we read and talked about edge. Which of the following statements
is TRUE about edge?
a. Hard edges are more likely to be found in the native landscape than urban areas
b. Hard edges are reduce the effects of the matrix on fragments
c. Soft edges are the result of tall trees that can bend with windy conditions
d. Hard edge would be found where a mature forest meets a new road
e. None of the above
3. The movement from the place of birth to the place of breeding is known as:
a. Breeding dispersal
b. Migration
c. Displacement
d. Habitat scouting
e. Juvenile dispersal
4. Urban avoiders are species that:
a. Take advantage of warmer temperatures in urban areas
b. Have higher breeding success in downtown areas
c. Tend to dominate bird communities when housing development is available
d. Are found in higher numbers as urbanization decreases
e. Tend to coexist with humans
5. Sex ratio is:
a. The number of young that are produced by a female per year
b. The number of years that any given species need in order to become sexually active
c. The number of males divided by females
d. The number of young divided by adults
e. The number of breeding individuals divided by the whole population number
6. The “species-area curve” represents:
a. The number of species present in an area given its area
b. The number of species that inhabit a particular habitat type
c. The number of species that have large home ranges
d. The number of species that are endangered in a certain place
e. The number of species that can invade a certain area
7. Carrying capacity is:
a. The maximum weight that vectors can transport from one patch to another
b. The number of individuals in the population that the ecosystem is able to support
c. The number of males compared to females
d. All above
e. None above
8. When the population of a species grows really fast, apparently without limit, the best
model to capture that behavior is the:
a. Logistic growth
b. Lotka-Volterra
c. Empirical
d. Mechanistic
e. Exponential growth
9. Where most of the extinctions attributed to exotic species have been documented?
a. In the Northern hemisphere
b. In Africa
c. In lowlands
d. In islands
e. In forests
10. What does BIDE stands for?
a. Banning Introductions Develop the Environment
b. Broad Integration for Decreasing Endangerment
c. Birth and Immigration Decrease Emigration
d. Birth Immigration Death Emigration
e. Basic Incorporation Due to Enrichment
11. The amount of area of land and ocean required to support your consumption of food, goods,
services, housing, and energy and assimilate your wastes is called:
a. Ecological footprint
b. Carrying capacity
c. Urban sprawl
d. Carbon emissions
e. Edge effect
12. The species that find the best conditions in the core habitats are called:
a. Edge species
b. Dominant species
c. Nuclear species
d. Early successional species
e. Interior species
13. You are studying a population of an endangered species and you found out that lambda is 1.2.
What is your reaction?
a. Get uneasy because you see no change in your population after all the effort to recover it
b. Get sad, because your population is decreasing
c. Get happy, because your population is increasing
d. Don’t know what to do
e. Calculate “r” to see if it shows a different trend
14. The ability of the environment to provide conditions appropriate for individual and population
persistence is the definition of:
a. Carrying capacity
b. Metapopulation
c. Landscape ecology
d. Population viability analysis
e. Habitat quality
15. Which of the following is a tool that land managers can use to advance succession?
a. A chainsaw
b. A herd of goats
c. Herbicide
d. Controlled fires
e. A tree planting crew
16. Predators have many different kinds of direct effects on their prey. But sometimes,
predators may have an effect on their prey populations even when they are not present. This
is what Dr. Aaron Wirsing called:
a. Reduced foraging efficiency
b. Suboptimal habitat use
c. “Remote control” by predators
d. Edge habitat preference
e. Bottom-up effect
The following figure shows the number of individuals in different age classes in three different
populations (A, B, C). The lower levels (closer to the x-axis) are younger ages than the ones on
top. Please use this figure to answer the next two questions.
17. Which of these populations is increasing?
a. A
b. B
c. C
d. A & B
e. B & C
18. What is the value of r (exponential growth rate) for population B?
a. r = 1
b. r = 0
c. r = -1
d. All it can be said from this figure is that r is positive for population B
e. It can’t be known from this figure
19. Under the logistic growth model the maximum sustained yield of a game (hunting) species
is achieved harvesting populations at:
a. 3/4 K
b. 2/3 K
c. 1/2 K
d. 1/3 K
e. 1/4 K
20. Some of the effects that result from changes in the Nitrogen Cycle include:
a. Enhanced carbon storage
b. Increase in plant productivity
c. Reduction in species richness
d. All above
e. None above
21. In a population of 200 individuals that experiences complete compensatory mortality and
has an overwinter carrying capacity of 150 individuals
a. Will have a population of 150 in the spring if hunters kill 50 individuals
b. Will have a population of 170 in the spring if hunters kill 30 individuals
c. Will have a population of 160 in the spring if hunters kill 40 individuals
d. Will have a population of 200 in the spring if hunters do not kill any individuals
e. None above
22. Density dependent factors…
a. Keep a population near carrying capacity
b. Take the form of flooding, extreme cold or fire
c. Affect the population size regardless of the number of individuals on the population
d. Are associated with additive mortality
e. Are stronger in temperate than tropical zones
23. Random changes in population growth rate and population size are known as:
a. Genetic variability
b. Source-sink dynamics
c. Metapopulation
d. Demographic stochasticity
e. Island biogeography theory
24. Which of the following aims to ensure international trade of species does not threaten
their survival:
a. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
b. World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
c. The Nature Conservancy (TNC)
d. International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
e. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)
25. When the number of individuals that die over the winter is not affected by hunting is
called:
a. Sink population
b. Low fitness
c. Bottleneck
d. Additive mortality
e. Compensatory mortality
26. Which of the following is a characteristic that is more common in urban than
rural landscapes?
a. High species richness
b. Decreased erosion
c. Colder temperatures
d. Increased noise
e. Soft edges
27. Which of these is a category used by CITES?
a. Generalist
b. Appendix II
c. Candidate Species
d. Endangered
e. Rare
28. Small populations have problems with genetic variability. When the population number is
reduced to very few individuals is known as:
a. Inbreeding depression
b. Founder effect
c. Bottleneck
d. Isolation
e. Edge effect
29. Recreational activities may disrupt wildlife’s behavior. Some immediate effects may be:
a. Stress (such as changes in heartbeat rate)
b. Escaping from the area
c. Increase in alertness
d. All above
e. None above
30. A species that was very common in the US went extinct due to various factors acting
together. This species is:
a. Gray Wolf
b. Dodo
c. Bison
d. White-tailed Deer
e. Passenger Pigeon
31. The ability of an individual of passing genes across generations is known as:
a. Carbon legacy
b. Fitness
c. Niche width
d. Suppression
e. BIDE
32. The product of the number of genetic units and the per-capita rate of carbon emissions is
known as:
a. Intrinsic carbon emission rate
b. Per-capita greenhouse gas impact
c. Delta carbon rate
d. Carbon legacy
e. None above
33. Ecosystems with higher diversity may be less prone to exotic species invasions. This is
known as:
a. High richness rule
b. Biotic resistance hypothesis
c. Bottleneck prevention strategy
d. Vector avoidance
e. Biological control
34. Minimum viable population is:
a. The minimum number of patches that need to be occupied in order to ensure long-term
viability of a metapopulation
b. The minimum number of individuals that are needed in order to ensure long-term viability
of a population
c. The minimum number of individuals that should be breeding in order to ensure long-term
viability of a population
d. All above
e. None above
35. One of the main problems that DDT produced in raptor populations was:
a. Reduced mobility among patches
b. Increased nest parasitism
c. Reduced food supply
d. Reduced nest success
e. Increased competition from exotic species
36. What do we do about invasive species?
a. Prevent their spread
b. Educate the community
c. Implement aggressive control programs
d. All above
e. None above
37. What effect does climate change have had on snow pack in the Pacific Northwest of USA?
a. Increased
b. Not affected
c. Reduced
d. It has not been studied
e. None above
38. Some life history traits of r-selected species include:
a. Many offspring produced
b. Short life expectancy
c. Early time to maturation
d. All above
e. None above
39. When a species is unique to a very restricted area in the world, we call it:
a. Endemic
b. Endangered
c. Facilitator
d. Mutualistic
e. Sympatric
40. Hunting of gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains will likely
a. Keep wolf populations below carrying capacity
b. Alter wolf pack structure which could lead to inbreeding
c. Create genetically isolated populations
d. Halt an ecosystem recovery cascade
e. All of the above
41. What effect does more droughts and fires have on Black-capped vireo habitat in Fort Hood,
TX?
a. Reduction
b. Unaltered
c. Increase
d. Fragmentation
e. Advances succession
42. Which of the following is NOT a reason to leave gray wolves on the endangered species
list?
a. There is a lack of genetic connectivity in the meta-population
b. All other species that have recovered from near extinction had many more breeding pairs
when removed from the list
c. Rocky Mountain wolves have colonized 80% of the land in the DPS boundary
d. Wolves may help control ungulate disease which can spread to livestock
e. Hunting may drive genetic diversity too low for wolves to be able to adapt when changes
occur in their habitat
43. An attempt to recover a natural range of variation of ecosystem composition, structure
and dynamics is what we call:
a. Restoration ecology
b. Ecological succession
c. Wildlife management
d. Ecological restoration
e. None above
Use the following figure to answer the next two questions.
44. The map above shows:
a. Areas of highest rate of habitat destruction
b. Areas most likely to be affected by climate change
c. Biodiversity Hotspots
d. The most important natural reserves
e. Unesco’s Natural heritage reserves map
45. What characteristics do these areas have?
a. High levels of endemism
b. All biomes are represented
c. It ensures that all species are protected
d. All above
e. None above
46. The description of the change over time and space in the ecological condition of potential
natural communities and the ecological processes that shape those communities is what we
call:
a. Genetic drift
b. Baseline data
c. Historical range of variation
d. Ecosystem variance
e. None above
Use the following figure to answer the next question.
47. The red dots represented above are all the potential reserves that you may add to your
current reserve network. Which quadrant has the candidates with the HIGHEST priority?
a. 1
b. 2
c. 3
d. 4
e. It can’t be established from this graph
48. Role of zoos has changed through time. What are the current goals of a zoo?
a. Act as conservation organizations
b. Provide an opportunity to animals that can’t be released into the wild
c. Education
d. All above
e. None above
49. Among the stages of systematic conservation planning, we have:
a. Measure and map biodiversity
b. Identify conservation goals
c. Select additional conservation areas
d. All above
e. None above
50. We determine that our restoration efforts were successful when:
a. We reduce the pressure of exotic species
b. Fires are completely suppressed
c. Species richness is over 25 species
d. The ecosystem is again functional and resilient
e. None above
For the following questions, mark A for True, B for False on your SCANTRON sheet (2 points
each)
51. Anthropomorphism is a useful way to understand animal behavior. FALSE
52. To maximize survival, prey always move to an area with the lowest density of predators.
FALSE
53. Your carbon legacy takes in to account the carbon emissions of your grandchildren’s
grandchildren. TRUE
54. GAP analysis is used to determine “holes” in reserve network representativeness. TRUE
55. The wildlife trust doctrine indicates that wildlife belongs to all citizens and should be managed
to maintain healthy populations. TRUE
56. Two species can live in the same place and consume the same resources at the same time.
FALSE
57. Population viability analysis is as quantitative tools to project the likelihood of extinction of a
population/species. TRUE
58. Two important aspects of good experimental design are controls and replication. TRUE
59. Canada Geese were killed as part of a controlled experiment to study density dependence in
Bend, OR. FALSE
60. One large reserve is always better than several small ones. FALSE
61. Urbanization impacts in biodiversity tend to persist for long time. TRUE
62. The Northern Spotted Owl is facing risk of extinction due to habitat loss and competition with
the Barred Owl. TRUE
63. When Lambda is 1, r equals zero. TRUE
64. Halting succession is an example of hands-on habitat management. TRUE
65. Populations that have few individuals are as likely to go extinct as populations that have many
individuals. FALSE
66. Inbreeding depression has very little relevance in wildlife conservation. FALSE
67. The amount of impervious surface is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. FALSE
68. Food supplementation by humans has little effect in urban and suburban bird communities.
FALSE
69. Reserve networks that include corridors are generally better than the ones that don’t. TRUE
70. “Dog-hair” forests are the preferred habitat of Pacific Northwest bats. FALSE
71. Forest falcons with similar sizes had higher home-range overlap than species with different
body size in the Peruvian Amazonia. FALSE
72. Biodiversity surrogates are useless because they don’t represent the full variety of biodiversity
conditions.FALSE
73. Mechanistic models are scenario-driven. TRUE
74. The current species extinction rate is very similar to what we have seen in the past.FALSE
75. As economic activity, wildlife watching is not as important as hunting in the USA. FALSE