Popular Mechanics
Legislation Alphabet Soup
Terrestrial Troubles
Aquatic Anxieties
"Pop" Culture
100
DAILY DOUBLE: Explain the difference between K-selected and R-selected species. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Give an example of each.
K-selected species tend to live longer lives, giving birth to fewer offspring, caring for them for longer periods of time, and reaching sexual maturity relatively later.
Advantages: longer parental care increases safety and likelihood of offspring to reach adulthood. K-selected organisms tend to be larger and live longer.
Disadvantages: tend to be near carrying capacity, so over competition is a risk.
Examples can include whales, elephants, bears, and humans.
R-selected species live shorter lives and give birth to large sets of offspring. Parenting is often limited or completely absent after offspring have emerged. Species reaches sexual maturity earlier. Examples include mice, rabbits, insects, and invertebrates.
Advantages: Opportunistic and able to reproduce quickly in order for genes to withstand disturbances or unstable habitats.
Disadvantages: Shorter life span, generally smaller body size
100
This legislation protects against the illegal trading of endangered plants and animals across international borders as well as within countries.
What is the Endangered Species Act (only if involving the United States) or CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species).
100
Natural Capital: Name 3 ecosystem services and 3 economic services provided by forests
Ecosystem: supports energy flow and chemical cycling, reduction of soil erosion, absorb and release water, purify water and air, influence local and regional climate, store atmospheric carbon, provide numerous wildlife habitats
Economic: fuelwood, lumber, pulp to make paper, mining, livestock grazing, recreation, jobs
100
Name the type of fishing with each scenario:
1. Enclosing a school of fish with a large net. Used to capture yellow fin tuna
2. Can be 80 miles long with thousands of baited hooks. This often results in bycatch of many ocean fish species.
3. Dragging huge nets across the bottom of the ocean which are weighted down to harvest bottom fish and shellfish
4. Often called "ghost-fishing" because these huge nets are left to float in the ocean by themselves for days resulting in a large bycatch
1. Purse-seine fishing
2. Long-line fishing
3. Trawler fishing
4. Drift-net fishing
100
Name the 4 stages of demographic transition, what their characteristic age-structure pyramids look like, and what changes cause the shapes to shift.
Preindustrial, Transitioning, Industrial, Post-industrial 
DAILY DOUBLE:
Name a country that fits these shapes:
Pyramid, column, inverted pyramid, bulged
200
Explain how carrying capacity works by using the terms "overshoot" and "dieback". Give an example of a documented crash (case study) in carrying capacity and name 3 factors that can change the carrying capacity over time
Carrying capacity is the maximum population of a givens species that a particular habitat can sustain indefinitely. The growth rate of a population may "overshoot" and exceed capacity if resources are plentiful and the population is not controlled by predation or diseases. After exceeding capacity, there is a decrease or a "dieback" as resources are depleted. Over time, the population typically stabilizes at or near the carrying capacity.
200
This international law required the phasing out of chloroflurocarbons, a molecule found in aerosol sprays, refrigerator coolants, and known to chemically react with stratospheric ozone.
Montreal Protocol
200
Types of non-tree fiber used to make paper pulp.
What are kenaf, rice straw, and hemp?
200
Give 3 SPECIFIC factors that threaten the general population and/or individual sea turtles.
Trawler fishing has destroyed their feeding areas, drowning in fishing nets and traps, hunting for turtle leather, choking on plastics in polluted water, eggs are taken for food, nests crushed by people and vehicles, hatchlings are confused by light pollution from cars and don't run towards the ocean
200
Name 2 of the 3 proposed strategies for slowing global human population growth and how they will affect the population size
1. Promote economic development: more developed countries have higher quality of life and can afford to spend less time laboring and more time being educated. Higher quality of life allows for longer life spans and less pressure to have children to contribute to the labor force.
2. Empower women: provide general education so women can be employed outside of domestic work and child care. This enables them to make more decisions about their lives and their reproductive plans.
3. Family planning: provide educational and clinical services to help couples choose how many children to have and when to have them. This can alleviate the pressure from family elders to have more children and economically help the couple
300
Edge habitats have allowed deer to flourish despite human encroachment on their habitat. Name 3 of the strategies that humans are using to try to reduce or discourage the deer population.
Changes in hunting regulations, hiring licensed archers, using predator scents and rotting deer meat to scare them away, using high frequency sounds, trapping and moving, contraceptive darts, sterilization in captivity
300
How are the two US laws that regulate water different? How are they related? Be sure to describe them by name in your response.
The Clean Water Act aims to make surface waters safe to swim and fish in. The Safe Drinking Water Act monitors and regulates water pollutants that may have adverse effects on human health. Both set maximum permissible amounts of water pollutants that are discharged into waterways.
300
Increased soil erosion and loss of native vegetation are consequences of this form of degradation by cattle.
What is overgrazing of grasslands?
300
What is "the other CO2 problem"? What negative impacts have been observed to organisms in the area that this directly affects?
Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is becoming dissolved in the oceans, causing the pH to decrease and become more acidic. Organisms that depend on calcium carbonate structures for food or structural support (such as coral) are decreasing in population because the acidic environment prevents full formation of these compounds. The result eventually leads to trophic cascades and possible ecosystem collapse.
300
What are 3 of the issues that women in preindustrial and transitioning countries face
Poverty, lack of decisions on body, lack of education, lack of healthcare, male-preference, traditional/cultural/societal pressures
400
LIGHTNING ROUND! You will have 3 seconds to respond "True" or "False" to a set of questions. Each question you get correct increases your point value multiplier, but each wrong answer will deduct the same amount.
1.High range of tolerance allows individuals of the same species to have varying physical or chemical tolerances. TRUE
2.Birth, death, immigration, and mutation govern changes in population size. FALSE (emigration, not mutation)
3.Too much or too little of even one necessary life factor can limit or prevent the growth of a population. TRUE
4.The age structure of a population can affect how it rapidly grows or declines in the future. TRUE
5.The three habitat dispersion patterns are clumped, uniform, and vertical. FALSE (random, not vertical).
400
LIGHTNING ROUND!
You will have 3 seconds to answer each question. Each correct answer increases your team's score by 400 points, however each incorrect answer will deduct 400 points.
TRUE/FALSE 1. The US has never ratified the international treaty that discontinued the use of the "Dirty Dozen", including certain aerosol sprays and refrigerator coolants. (F - the law is the Kyoto Protocol)
2. The Endangered Species Act would prevent a poacher in Africa from selling a rhino horn to someone living in Singapore. (F - the ESA only has jurisdiction in the United States)
3. The Superfund has the jurisdiction to mandate the cleanup of hazardous waste on both federal and private property. (T)
4. The Delaney Clause of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act, regulates and protects against overuse of pesticides in U.S. produced food only if they are proven to cause cancer in humans. (T)
400
This management strategy has allowed for not only biodiversity to be researched and protected but has encouraged increased tourism-- 2/3 of which involves ecotourism. Also, give an example of a country outside of the US that has successfully implemented this.
What is the government management of parks and megareserves?
By KVDP - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
400
This nekton's populations have been observed as increasing in the last few years. Their most well-known impact is possibly in the sting that has caused beach tourism to decline. Name this organism and give one reason for their rise and one negative impact from their increasing populations.
What are jellyfish? (Invasive species)
Rise: warming ocean temperatures, loss of natural predators from overfishing.
Impacts: decreased beach tourism, human injury, disrupt commercial fishing by clogging nets, closure of power plants by clogging cooling water intakes, decreased aquaculture due to jellyfish infestations
400
Lightning Round! Give the key term that matches the definition. You have 3 seconds.
1.The average number of children that couples in a population must bear to replace themselves.
REPLACEMENT-LEVEL FERTILITY RATE
2.The average number of children born to the women in a population during their reproductive years. TOTAL FERTILITY RATE
3. The equation for doubling time.
THE RULE OF 70 or 70/r
4.The movement of people out of a geographic area.
EMIGRATION
5.The policy enacted by China, although intrusive, strict, and expensive to enforce, was an example of this.
FAMILY PLANNING
500
Explain the significance of this graph and provide an example for each type.
A survivorship curve is a graph showing the number or proportion of individuals surviving to each age for a given species or group.
There are three generalized types of survivorship curves:
Type I or convex curves are characterized by high age-specific survival probability in early and middle life, followed by a rapid decline in survival in later life.
- They are typical of species that produce few offspring but care for them well, including humans and many other large mammals. (K-selected species)
Type II or diagonal curves are an intermediate between Types I and III, where roughly constant mortality rate/survival probability is experienced regardless of age.
- Some birds and some lizards follow this pattern.
Type III or concave curves have the greatest mortality (lowest age-specific survival) early in life, with relatively low rates of death (high probability of survival) for those surviving this bottleneck. This type of curve is characteristic of species that produce a large number of offspring.
- This includes most marine invertebrates. For example, oysters produce millions of eggs, but most larvae die from predation or other causes; those that survive long enough to produce a hard shell live relatively long. (r-selected species)
500
How might the RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) and the CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act) be used in conjunction for an active mining site? Be specific in your hypothetical scenario.
A sample response:
Both CERCLA and RCRA are involved with the management of hazardous waste. For example, in sites where mining for minerals has occurred, RCRA would regulate the method by which the mining company would be able to source, transport, and dispose of the mineral material. CERCLA would then mandate that the same company be responsible for the cleanup of the mining site.
500
How do each of the following speed up ecological succession processes?
1. Restoration
2. Rehabilitation
3. Replacement
4. Creating artificial ecosystems
Restoration - returning a degraded habitat or ecosystem to a condition as similar as possible to its natural state.
Rehabilitation - turning a degraded ecosystem into a functional or useful ecosystem without trying to restore it to its original condition
Replacement - replacing a degraded ecosystem with another type of ecosystem
Creating artificial ecosystems - artificial ecosystems may potentially reduce other issues such as flooding, erosion, or toxicity.
500
What can consumers do in order to help sustain fisheries and aquatic biodiversity? As a whole, what can humans do to sustain this resource?
Choose to buy and consume sustainable seafood and sustainable aquaculture products. Regulate limits on catch size, reduce or eliminate subsidies, establish no-fishing areas and marine protected areas, use nets that allow smaller fish and non-food organisms to escape, restrict and regulate locations of fish farms to reduce pollution, and monitor and eliminate invasive species.
500
Everyone in!
At the end of the Hundred Year War, the population of the Fire Nation had a crude birth rate of 20 births per 1000 women and a crude death rate of 40 per 1000. Immigration was 2 per 1000 and emigration 12 per 1000. Calculate the growth rate. What is the likely age structure pyramid type for the Fire Nation as time goes on if the rate does not change?
-3%. Inverted triangle.