If there are “CUES” listed within the question, please USE them and UNDERLINE them in your
answer!
Chapter 1
1. Organisms share many conserved processes that are widely distributed among organisms today. Briefly
outline five distinctive characteristics of life shared by all living organisms. Also, how do your listed shared
characteristics provide evidence of evolution? (CUES: adaptations, biodiversity, metabolism, asexual, sexual)
2. Distinguish between inductive & deductive reasoning. (CUES: general, specific)
3. Distinguish between quantitative & qualitative data. (CUES: numerical, descriptive, appearance,
temperature)
4. Biologist Tyrone Hayes and his co-workers investigated the effects of the herbicide atrazine on sexual
development in frogs. In their experiments, they exposed each group of tadpoles to a specific amount of
atrazine, and they repeated each experiment multiple times for each treatment. Their observations suggested
that frogs exposed to atrazine early in life developed multiple, mixed gonads or became de-masculinized as a
result (). In the experiment, frog larvae were exposed to atrazine at nominal concentrations of 0.01, 0.1, 1.0,
10.0, and 25 parts per billion (ppb). All stock solutions were made in ethanol (10 mL), mixed in 15-gallon
containers, and dispensed into treatment tanks. Controls were treated with ethanol such that all tanks
contained 0.004% ethanol. Water was changed and treatments were renewed once every 72 hours. Each
treatment was replicated 3 times with 30 animals per replicate (total of 90 animals per treatment) in both
experiments. All treatments were systematically rotated around the shelf every 3 days to ensure that no one
treatment or no one tank experienced position effects. Experiments were carried out at 22oC with animals
uner a 12-hour/12-hour light-dark cycle.
Identify the elements below found in the above experiment:
a) Independent Variable
b) Range of the Independent Variable
c) Dependent
Variable
d) Control
e) Constants
f) Repeated Trials
5. After looking at the many types of fish food available at a local store, a friend asked you if flake fish food
or shrimp pellets would make his goldfish grow faster. Design a controlled experiment to test this question.
(HINT: You are not simply writing a procedure. You should discuss all of the elements of good experimental
design. Begin by identifying your independent and dependent variables and writing a hypothesis.)
Chapter 50
1. Discuss four abiotic factors found in most temperate forest ecosystems; be sure to include
information on how these factors determine the distribution of organisms and the evolution of
organisms.
2. Use Figure 50.10 to describe how the Earth’s weather patterns are affected by the tilt of the Earth
on its axis. Include equatorial and temperate zone comparisons. Also, describe what would happen if
the tilt of Earth was to increase to 25o.
3. Using Figure 50.12 to explain why Winston-Salem rarely receives high snow accumulations when the
moisture sources flow strictly from west-to-east across North Carolina. (CUES: windward, leeward)
4. Look at Figure 50.17 to briefly describe the 8 major freshwater & marine biomes.
5. Use Figure 50.20 to briefly describe the 8 major terrestrial biomes.
Chapter 51
1. Moth species that co-habit with bats fold their wings and drop to the ground when an ultrasonic sound
from a bat is encountered. Based on what you know about natural selection, suggest why some
experimental groups of moths might respond like the moth species described above, while some other
experimental groups of moths might show no behavioral change when exposed to the ultrasonic sounds.
(CUES: fitness, environment, adaptation)
2. Why does the mode of fertilization correlate with the presence or absence of male parental care?
(CUES: certainty of paternity, internal fertilization, external fertilization)
3. Suppose the digger wasps that Tinbergen studied had returned their original nest site, despite the
pinecones having been moved. What alternative hypotheses might you propose regarding how the
wasps find their nest and why the pinecones didn’t misdirect the wasps? (CUES: landmarks, chemical
communication, pheromones)
4. How might associative learning explain why different species of distasteful or stinging insects have
similar colors? (CUES: stimulus, mimicry, evolution)
5. For each of the three scenarios below, identify the type of behavior shown and discuss the
environmental cues that lead to these behaviors. (CUES: adaptation, reproductive success, inclusive
fitness)
a. Hand-reared, endangered baby cranes are shown an ultralight aircraft when they are born,
which is later used to lead the young cranes on their migratory routes.
b. When a female goose notices an egg outside the nest, it begins a repeated movement to drag
the egg with its beak and neck. However, if the egg slides off, the goose continues to repeat
the movements even if the egg is absent, and continues to repeat the movements until the egg
is returned.
c. In a group of wild turkeys, a subordinate turkey may help his dominant brother put on an
impressive display that is only of direct benefit to the dominant turkey.
Chapter 52
1. As shown in Figure 51.4, a male stickleback fish attacks other males that invade its nesting territory.
Predict a likely pattern of dispersion for male sticklebacks, and explain your reasoning. (CUES:
territoriality, antagonistic)
2. Naked mole rats that experience environmental stressors will sometimes abandon their young. Explain
how this behavior might have evolved in the context of reproductive trade-offs & life history to lead
to increased success of the population. (CUES: generation, reproduction, environmental conditions)
3. Each female of a particular mosquito species produces millions of eggs per year. Draw and label the
most likely survivorship curve for this species and explain your choice.
4. Where is population growth more likely – in an area where a forest was destroyed by fire or in a
mature undisturbed forest? Why? (CUES: competition, resources, space, nutrients, light)
5. Ticks are a parasite relying on blood meals to reproduce. Explain how physical factors such as rainfall
could influence their population.
Chapter 53
1. The conifer forest within North Carolina’s Croatan National Forest experiences moderate fires,
typically every few years. If these disturbances were relatively modest, how would the species
diversity of the forest likely be affected if no burning occurred for 100 yrs? Explain your answer.
(CUES: competition, intermediate disturbance hypothesis)
2. Use Figure 53.2 to describe the difference between a fundamental niche & realized niche. (CUES:
potential, actual, competition)
3.
4.
5.
6.
Despite the many decades that have passed after the eruption of the volcano Krakatoa, only now are
stable communities of organisms becoming established in the area. Describe the mechanisms of early
(“pioneer”) species that facilitate the success of later species during succession.
Describe 2 hypotheses that explain why food chains are usually short, and state a key prediction of
each hypothesis. (CUES: energetic, 10% rule, dynamic stability, unpredictable environment)
Consider a grassland with 5 trophic levels: plants, grasshoppers, snakes, raccoons & bobcats. If you
released additional bobcats into the grassland, how would plant biomass change if the bottom-up model
applied? If the top-down model applied? (CUES: nutrients, predation)
Use Figure 53.27 to explain the relationship of the following on small islands. a) immigration &
extinction b) island size & # of species c) distance from mainland & # of species.
Chapter 54
1. Copy and complete the following table:
Cycle
Fluxes (processes that
transfer material from
one pool to another)
Water
Carbon
Nitrogen
2.
3.
Pools (places where
material is stored
short-term)
Sinks (places where
material is inaccessible
for long periods)
Review the discussion of the 2nd law of thermodynamics in Figure 8.3 (p 143). How does this physical
law explain why an ecosystem’s energy supply must continually be replenished?
Concept 10.3 describes the Calvin cycle of photosynthesis. Use Figure 10.18 (p 194) to explain how
nitrogen and phosphorus, the nutrients that most often limit primary production, are necessary for
the Calvin cycle to function. (CUES: NADPH, ATP)
Chapter 55
1. Some ecologists propose buying land in Central America and forming a green belt of vegetation from
South America up through tropical North America. Others propose saving large isolated regions as
parks. Discuss which proposal would be more successful at maintaining species biodiversity throughout
Central America. (CUES: dispersal, inbreeding, migration, genetic diversity)
2. Explain why it is too narrow to define the biodiversity crisis as simply a loss of species. (CUES:
genetic, microevolution, ecosystem, ecosystem services)
3. There are vast stores of organic matter in the soils of northern coniferous forests and tundra around
the world. Based on what you learned about decomposition on pg 1198, suggest an explanation for why
scientists who study global warming are closely monitoring these stores. (CUES: permafrost,
methane, carbon dioxide, thaw, greenhouse gas layer)
Can Credit Question
There are often unofficial “limits” on ingesting certain fish like tuna, swordfish, and king mackerel. Why are
these limits likely in place? Use ideas from Chapter 54 in your answer. (CUES: biological magnification)
Also, include in your answer the following: 5 possible sources of this pollution and 3 possible human
health risks of not abiding by the suggested fish ingestion limits.