Marine Biology
Stahl Midterm Review 2012-2013
History of Marine Science and Scientific Method
1. What are the steps of the scientific method in order?
2. How much of the Earth’s surface is covered with seawater?
3. Know the following scientists and their contributions to marine biology:
a. Edward Forbes
b. Alexander Agassiz
c. Charles Darwin
d. Charles Wyville Thomas
4. Define oceanography.
5. Define the scientific method.
6. What is the difference between induction and deduction?
7. What is the very first step in the scientific method?
8. Know the contributions of the HMS Beagle and the HMS Challenger.
9. What was the first US Marine Laboratory?
10. What is a scientific theory and in order for it to be accepted what must it show?
11. Define Marine Biology.
12. What is the difference between an independent, dependent, and controlled
variable?
13. The earliest recorded direct studies of marine biology came from which people?
Marine Ecology
1. What is the difference between anaerobic and aerobic respiration?
2. Define habitat and understand what makes up an organisms habitat.
3. What do nutrients do when they are limited? How do they affect the bay?
4. Where do the products of metabolism accumulate and what are metabolic
wastes?
5. Define biosphere.
6. Know the zones of stress and optimal range of an organism.
7. What must organisms that live in the intertidal deal with on a daily basis?
8. What were the first living organisms considered to be?
9. When is an environment considered harsh?
Marine Biology
Stahl Midterm Review 2012-2013
10. Define symbiosis and know the three types of symbiosis. Be able to provide
examples.
11. What is the difference between an ectotherm and an endotherm?
12. What is the difference between a community and a population?
13. What are keystone species?
14. What is the difference between Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3 survival curves?
15. How do nutrients reach the upper levels of the ocean?
16. How much energy is transferred from trophic level to trophic level?
17. What are the important nutrients for photosynthesis?
18. Define ecosystem.
19. What is the difference between abiotic and biotic factors?
20. What fundamental role do animals play in the carbon cycle?
21. What is eutrophication and what can it lead to?
22. What is the most important marine photosynthetic organism?
23. Where do chemosynthetic organisms get their energy?
24. What is an important inorganic nutrient found in photosynthesis?
25. What is the difference between intraspecific competition and interspecific
competition?
26. Why are estuaries important?
27. Define osmosis.
28. Define salinity.
29. What is a niche?
Geology of the Ocean Floor
1. Know the layers of the Earth:
a. Which is the thickest?
b. What is the region of the mantle below the crust that serves as a
lubricant called?
c. What each crust is made up of?
d. What is the solid region of crust and upper mantle called?
2. What are island arcs?
3. What are the four major ocean basins?
4. Know the different types of sediment: biogenous, cosmogenous, terrigenous,
lithogenous, and hydrogenous.
5. If a core sample is taken 100 km west of and parallel to a ridge system. Magnetic
readings of the rock show a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field. How many km.
east of the ridge system must scientists travel to collect a core sample with the
same magnetic properties?
6. What is the deepest underwater trench in the world?
7. What are the nine pieces of evidence that support continental drift?
8. What is seafloor spreading the result of?
9. What was oxygen like during the early development of the atmosphere?
10. How are seamounts formed?
11. How are mid ocean ridges formed?
Marine Biology
Stahl Midterm Review 2012-2013
12. What is a subduction zone?
13. What is the difference between a gulf and a sea?
14. What is the difference between pelagic and benthic?
15. Why was H H Hess so important?
16. What do drowned rivers help create?
17. The continental rise is made up of sediment that is deposited by what?
18. Lithospheric plates move past each other at what regions?
19. What is the area beyond the neritic zone called?
20. What is the oceanic crust made up of and what is the continental crust made up
of?
21. What do the forces of the mantle on the crust give way to?
22. What are turbidity currents?
23. What is the abyssal plain?
24. The transition between the continental shelf and the deep floor is what?
25. What do we find where oceanic crust is cracked and magma is emerging?
26. How did gaseous oxygen form in the Earth’s atmospshere?
27. Who coined the term Pangea?
28. What is the difference between convergent, divergent, and transform plate
movement?
29. How did the first heterotrophs obtain their energy?
30. What is the gentle slope called that at the base of the continental slope?
31. When Pangea first broke up what two large bodies of land did they form?
Tampa Bay Unit
1. Define the following: watershed, food chain, estuary, food web, brackish, and
nursery.
2. What counties make up the Tampa Bay watershed area?
3. What are the four major rivers that make up the Tampa Bay watershed?
4. Why is Tampa Bay considered to be an estuary and why is it so important to the
ecosystem?
5. Where are contaminated soils most abundant in Tampa Bay? Why do you think so?
6. Are there any endangered or threatened species in Tampa Bay? Why so and list at
least five?
7. What has happened to the bay since 1950 til present day? Lead me through the
decades.
8. How many creeks drain into the bay? Major rivers?
9. How many people move to the Tampa Bay area weekly?
10 How many species of fish are found in the bay? List three.
11. What is the relationship between Tampa Bay and its watershed?
12. Why is mixing of freshwater and salt water in the bay important?
13. Why is the word nursery used to describe the bay?
14.Be able to label the map of the bay.
15. What is phytoplankton and why is it important?
Marine Biology
Stahl Midterm Review 2012-2013
16. How much money does the Port of Tampa contribute to the economy each year?
17. Who were the first people to inhabit the Tampa Bay area?
18. What are seagrasses?
19. What are the three major types of seagrass that live in the bay?
20. Why are seagrasses so important?
21. Create a food web using worms, bull shark, manatee, pelican, seagrass,
phytoplankton, red drum, shrimp, sand, and a blue crab.
22. What does turbidity mean?
23. Why did fishing in Tampa Bay become less productive after 1950?
24. Explain why the following affect the bay: storm water run-off, power plants, vehicle
emissions, bio-accumulation, increased population growth, and industry.
25. Where is the most abundant bird sanctuary located in all of Florida?
26. What is a sanctuary and why is it important that we have places like these?
27. How many pairs of birds come to the local sanctuary every spring?
28. List at least five bird species that live at the sanctuary?
29. What is land acquisition and why is it so important?
30. What is a Florida friendly yard and how does it affect the bay if you don’t have one?
31. What type of hands on activities can students like you get involved in?
32. Define restoration.
33. How do oyster habitats stabilize the shoreline?
34. What are prop scars and what can they do to the seagrass beds?
35. What are the three types of mangroves found in Tampa Bay? Why are they
important?