Conservation & Endangered Species
What is the term for protecting and managing natural resources and wildlife?
Conservation
What is a species that is introduced to a new environment where it does not naturally occur?
Invasive species (non-native species)
What is it called when animals of the same species live and interact together in a coordinated way?
Group behavior (social behavior)
What is the original source of energy for most ecosystems?
The sun
What is the maximum number of individuals an environment can support called?
Carrying capacity
An endangered bird's breeding grounds are protected in one state, but the birds migrate to another state. What is the best way to improve this program?
Work with the other state to establish a conservation program there as well
Why can invasive plants overpopulate an area so quickly?
There are no native animals that eat them, so they have no natural predators or competitors
Name one advantage of animals living in groups.
Protection from predators, increased hunting success, shared care of young (any one)
Green plants contain 150,000 kcal of energy. Only 10% transfers to the next level.
Fill in the blanks:
Plants: 15,000. Rabbits: 1,500. Eagles: 150
Name two limiting factors that can affect population size.
Food, water, space, shelter, disease, predation (any two)
The red cockaded woodpecker is endangered because old pine trees have been clearcut in various areas. What is this considered?
Logging/Habitat Fragmentation
Select each correct answer. Which would likely decrease the population size of an established plant species?
A herd of musk oxen forms a circle around their young when wolves approach. What type of group behavior is this?
Defensive group behavior (cooperative defense)
Put these in the correct order of a food chain: secondary consumer, decomposer, producer, primary consumer, tertiary consumer.
Producer → Primary consumer → Secondary consumer → Tertiary consumer → Decomposer
What is biodiversity?
The variety of different species living in an ecosystem or on Earth
Why is genetic diversity important when growing seedlings to restore a tree population affected by disease?
Genetic diversity increases the chance that some individuals will survive if new threats arise
White pine blister rust was introduced to North America by humans. What is the best long-term solution to protect whitebark pine trees?
Best practice
How does group behavior like schooling in fish or flocking in birds reduce an individual's chance of being caught by a predator?
The large group confuses predators and dilutes the risk for any single individual (dilution effect / confusion effect)
Only about 10% of energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next. Where does the other 90% go?
It is lost as heat through cellular respiration, waste, etc. (metabolic processes)
Why are ecosystems with high biodiversity generally more resilient than ecosystems with low biodiversity?
More species means more complex food webs and ecological relationships, so the loss of one species is less likely to collapse the entire system
Biodiversity may be lost due to catastrophic events or human activities. What is a consequence of the loss of biodiversity?
The disappearance of one species can negatively impact overall species richness
Explain why introducing a non-native species to compete with an invasive species is usually a poor solution.
The introduced species could itself become invasive, creating additional ecological problems and further disrupting the native ecosystem
Give an example of group behavior that benefits the survival of the species but may put an individual at greater risk.
An alarm caller warns the group of a predator, which helps the group survive but draws attention to the individual making the call
Other examples
Explain how carbon moves from the atmosphere into living organisms and back again.
Plants absorb CO2 through photosynthesis, consumers eat plants and pass carbon through the food chain, and carbon returns to the atmosphere through respiration, decomposition, and combustion
A new disease wipes out 80% of a plant species that many animals depend on. Predict what happens to the primary consumers, secondary consumers, and overall biodiversity in that ecosystem.
Primary consumers lose their food source and decline, secondary consumers then decline due to fewer prey, and overall biodiversity decreases as the ecosystem destabilizes