BISC 003: Exam #3 Study Guide
1. Know how erosion, salinization and development can loss of agricultural land or reduced potential productivity.
2. What three “ingredients” are needed to make topsoil?
3. Know the different horizons of an idealized soil profile, and the characteristics of each. Are all soil profiles contain the same proportions of each horizon type?
4. From where can organic matter in an A-horizon originate?
5. Know names and relative sizes of the three soil particle classes. How does each particle class and organic matter influence soil fertility factors (water infiltration, water-holding capacity, nutrient-holding capacity, soil aeration)?
6. What is the biology of transpiration? Is transpiration by plants a faster or slower means of returning water to the atmosphere compared with evaporation directly from the soil surface?
7. What soil conditions favor surface runoff of rain water?
8. What seven qualities (characteristics) make a fertile soil?
9. Know the various types of organisms (microbes to insects) that participate in the soil detritus foodweb.
10. What is humus, where is found, how is it produced? How is soil fertility enhanced by its presence?
11. What happens to humus content of soil if there is deforestation, overgrazing, or over-cultivation
(tilling)? Be able to explain why erosion results from each of these three human activity.
12. Where globally is soil degradation very serious? What human activity has been identified as the most problematic cause for soil degradation in Africa? In Asia? In North America?
13. What are the major principles of sustainable agriculture, and what approaches can contemporary farmers use in agriculture to reduce erosion?
14. What are characteristics of subsistence farming versus modern agriculture?
15. What was the Green Revolution and has it solved the problems or gaps in the global food supply?
16. What differences in food trade versus food aid? Explain how food aid impact local economies, agriculture, ecology, hunger in the human population.
17. Understand possible solutions to sustaining a global food supply. Why is clearing more land not one of the solutions?
18. Be able to recognize the kinds of advances made possible by biotechnology. What’s the promise and problem with biotechnology?
19. Explain the three philosophies of pest control, including integrated pest management.

BISC 003: Exam #3 Study Guide
20. Know characteristics of the four generations of pesticide development.
21. Know the potential problems with chemical treatment of pests (resistance, resurgence, secondary outbreaks). What are human health concerns?
22. Persistent pesticides, like DDT, can be problematic for wildlife – why?
23. Be able to recognize examples of cultural pest control, control by natural enemies, genetic control, and control by natural compounds.
24. To what extent can natural control mechanisms be used to curtail a pest population explosion before it is necessary for a farmer to resort to some means of pest control?
25. Be able to distinguish between examples of instrumental value and intrinsic value of wild species.
26. What factors characterize the difference between wild and cultivated species?
27. What five factors contribute to biodiversity decline? Which three are main reasons for extinctions?
28. How is water naturally purified? Which requires energy input and which releases energy, evaporation or condensation?
29. Explain the process of adiabatic cooling of a warm moist air mass rising in the atmosphere, and how can this lead to precipitation. Specifically how does relative humidity change during adiabatic cooling? What is adiabatic warming, and when does it happen?
30. What are two main factors that control rainfall patterns? What is a Hadley convection cell and a rain shadow effect? Why is it wetter on the west coast of southern South America and northern North America compared to the continental interior to the east of these coasts (see the figure of global rainfall).
31. What are possible fates of water that lands on the ground surface? Know the water cycle processes.
32. How does changing the Earth’s surface with impermeable surfaces (roads, roofs, etc…) impact the water cycle? How do storm drains that run directly into streams cause damage to the environment. What is a better means of storm water management?
33. Be able to interpret hydrographs for equal storm events in a forested versus an urbanized watersheds.
34. What are some forms of water pollution found in surface runoff?
35. What happens when water is overdrawn from surface water and groundwater (subsidence, wetland loss, fisheries loss, saltwater intrusion, etc…)
36. What makes dams and water diversions problematic to the environment? What are two ways to make freshwater from saltwater?
37. What are some more efficient ways to cut water consumption in agriculture and in municipalities?
38. Understand all six forms of water pollution and the difference between point and non-point source pollution. Which forms fall into which categories?

BISC 003: Exam #3 Study Guide
39. How do excess sediments cause damage to stream ecosystems?
40. What does oligotrophic and eutrophic mean? What is cultural eutrophication and how can it happen?
41. Know the definitions of the vocabulary terms given below.
potential productivity, horizons, soil profile,
O horizon, humus,
A horizon, topsoil,
E horizon,
B horizon,
C horizon, soil texture, loam, soil fertility, weathering, leaching, nutrient-holding capacity, water-holding capacity, organic fertilizer, inorganic fertilizer, transpiration, infiltrate, soil aeration, compaction, erosion, desert pavement, desertification, overcultivation, no-till agriculture, strip cropping, shelterbelts, overgrazing, deforestation, sediments, flood (ditch) irrigation, center-pivot irrigation, salinization,
Green Revolution,
Biodiversity, instrumental value, intrinsic value, ecotourism, endangered species, threatened species, extinction, exotic (introduced) species, pests, herbicides, pesticides, chemical control, ecological control, integrated pest I management, first-generation pesticides, second-generation pesticides, third-generation pesticides, fourth-generation pesticides, broad spectrum, persistent, resistance, resurgence, secondary pest outbreak, bioaccumulation, biomagnification, bioconcentration, natural and biological control, cultural control, control by natural enemies, genetic control, natural chemical control, juvenile hormone, economic threshold, freshwater, seawater, surface waters, hydrologic cycle, water vapor, relative humidity, condensation,
Hadley cell,
Rain shadow, runoff, watershed, evapotranspiration, percolation, ground waters, water table, aquifer, recharge area, spring, land subsidence, sinkhole, saltwater intrusion, gray water, desalination, distillation, reverse osmosis, hydrograph,
“flashy” watershed, stormwater retention
reservoir (pond), eutrophication, point source, nonpoint source, pathogens, biochemical oxygen demand, inorganic chemicals, organic chemicals, coliform bacteria, benthic plants, submerged aquatic
vegetation, emergent aquatic
vegetation, oligotrophic, natural eutrophication, cultural eutrophication