Bio 159 Marine Ecology exam (2008)
Name___________________________________________________
Marine Ecology Exam – Open Book – work alone or preferably in Groups – but each
person much turn in a completed exam
Definitions (3 points each)
1) Hermatypic coral
2) Zooxanthallae
3) Anthocaulus
4) Recruitment limitation
5) Competitive exclusion
6) Statistical power
7) Niche Diversification
8) Carrying capacity
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Bio 159 Marine Ecology exam (2008)
Name___________________________________________________
Identifications (1 points each)
a) coral morphology – identify the structure that each arrow points to
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Bio 159 Marine Ecology exam (2008)
Name___________________________________________________
Compare and contrast (6 points each)
1) brooding vs broadcast spawning
2) Lower vs upper slope on a coral reef (biological and physical characteristics of)
3) Density dependent vs density independent processes
4) Settlement vs recruitment
5) Type I vs Type II error
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Bio 159 Marine Ecology exam (2008)
Name___________________________________________________
Short Answer (10 points each)
1) What is the type of association between Zooxanthallae and Corals: what do each
get out of the association
2) What are the basic growth forms of hermatypic corals, where might these occur?
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Bio 159 Marine Ecology exam (2008)
Name___________________________________________________
3) Graph the expected relationship between settlement and subsequent adult density
a. Label the axes
b. Indicate the regions of density dependence and density independence
c. Indicate where recruitment is limiting and not limiting
d. Indicate the areas where pre and post settlement processes are important
4) Can alternative hypotheses ever be confirmed under hypothetico-deductive
reasoning? Why or why not. (1/2 page only)
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Bio 159 Marine Ecology exam (2008)
Name___________________________________________________
Essay questions (20 points each, no more than one page per essay)
1) Maintenance of Diversity – describe 2 equalibrial and 2 non-equalibrial
hypotheses for the maintenance of diversity
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Bio 159 Marine Ecology exam (2008)
Name___________________________________________________
2) Describe our current thinking on the process by which coral reefs are formed.
Make sure that you describe the types of reef that result. What is the evidence for
this mechanism? Who first described the process?
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Bio 159 Marine Ecology exam (2008)
Name___________________________________________________
3) Assume that on your first set of dives in Moorea you notice that:
a. As recruits, both Chromis virdis and Dascylus arunanus occur on
Pocillopora and not on other coral species
b. When they co-occurred there seemed to be more total recruits than when
they occurred without the other species
c. The total number of recruits never exceeded a threshold
Make a plot (graph) of b & c. Propose a plausible general hypothesis for these
observations. Now provide a specific hypothesis and an experiment or survey
that will critically test the hypothesis. Don’t worry about replication or error rates
here. Instead pay attention to what your treatments will be and the location of the
replicates (how you would place them).
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Bio 159 Marine Ecology exam (2008)
Name___________________________________________________
4) Assume you arrive on Moorea and decide that you want to determine the effect of
Acanthaster on the recruitment of Dascylus arunanus. In particular, you want to
figure out if dead Pocillopora are as effective at inducing larval fish settlement as
live Pocillopora. You are trying to figure out what your replication should be.
The only information you have is from a student study done in the last version of
the class. They produced a data set for 10 coral heads (recruitment of D.
arunanus). Their numbers were: 10, 22, 15, 17,17, 20, 13, 14 19, 11. You
suspect that recruitment might be lower on dead coral. Design a study that will
allow detection of a 50% decrease in D. arunanus recruitment on dead vs live
coral. Tell me:
a. Will you be using a one or two tailed test?
b. What level of alpha (Type 1 error) will you use? Why?
c. What level of Power (1-Beta; Beta=Type 2 error) will you use? Why?
d. What is your replication per treatment? Your two treatments will be dead
vs live Pocillopora.
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