BIOE 370 General Ecology: Practice Test 1

What do Earth’s five mass extinctions (so far) have in common?

How do mycorrhizal fungi affect the slow carbon cycle?

A mountain range receives moist air carried inland from the ocean. Why would you generally expect less precipitation on the downwind side of the mountains?

How does silicate rock weathering act as a negative feedback on global climate over long time periods?

If you were to add phosphorus but not nitrogen to a plot of plants, you would expect to see enhanced plant growth, particularly in

The abiotic factors that determine which biome can be found in a given location are that location’s average _____________ and ___________________.

A forest stores 120 tons of carbon per hectare at age 40 and 123 tons per hectare at age 41. How many hectares of this forest would be needed to offset a factory’s emissions of 600 tons of carbon during that year?

The evidence suggesting that past warming events may have made tropical rainforests even more biodiverse than they are today is that, during hot periods…

The stoichiometry of active compost is different from that of soil because

The intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) is caused by

Hadley cells

Microbes decompose sawdust containing 1,000 kg of carbon. They release 60% of this carbon through respiration and incorporate the rest into new biomass. If their biomass has a C mass ratio of 10:1, how much nitrogen must they obtain to produce this biomass?

The “inorganic” carbon cycle contains some important biotic components, including

Two tropical locations have similar temperature and rainfall, but one supports closed-canopy forest and the other supports savanna. Which difference could help explain this?

Which would add the most to atmospheric water content?

A major influx of freshwater would _________________ North Atlantic deep water formation.

Fixation of inorganic carbon by phytoplankton is highest in areas where ______________ and ______________ come together.

A geoengineering strategy that manipulates the biological pump to reduce the size of the atmospheric carbon pool is:

Small consumers that live in open water and move with the current are called _______________.

The biosphere facilitates plate tectonics by

How does ocean circulation influence the distribution of temperature across Earth’s surface?