Active Lecture Questions for BIOLOGY, Eighth Edition Neil Campbell & Jane Reece Questions prepared by Eric Ribbens, Western Illinois University Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings. Chapter 52 An Introduction to Ecology and the Biosphere

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings. The figure below (Figure 52.5 in the textbook) shows the distribution of red kangaroos in Australia. From this figure, you can predict that kangaroos a)eat plants. b)prefer a hot dry climate. c)don’t like saltwater. d)prefer to live in areas where people don’t live. e)are more abundant in some years than in other years.

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings. Look at the following graph (Figure 52.8 in your textbook). Seaweed was much more abundant when limpets and sea urchins were removed. However, removing limpets alone had no effect, but removing sea urchins alone had a substantial effect. From this, you can conclude that a)limpets don’t eat seaweed. b)limpets eat sea urchins. c)limpets don’t matter. d)sea urchins can eat more seaweed than limpets can. e)limpets can eat more seaweed than sea urchins can.

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings. One reason that deserts tend to be found about 25° N and S of the equator is that a)deserts are dry. b)it’s warmer near the equator. c)global wind patterns affect where rain falls. d)desert soils are different from tropical rain forest soils. e)mountains change rainfall patterns.

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings. The tundra biome is shown in Figure as a gray band in the north, especially along the Arctic Ocean and the edges of Greenland. I don’t see a comparable band in the south. This is probably because a)the tundra plants and animals can’t migrate that far away. b)it’s warmer in the south. c)we call tundra something different in the southern hemisphere. d)it has all been destroyed by people. e)there isn’t land at that latitude.

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings. Even though the tundra biome is shown as a gray band in the north, there is tundra in the tropics. This is probably because a)the climate is right for tundra at high elevations. b)global warming is making all of the biomes move. c)birds that nest for the summer in the arctic tundra carry tundra seeds with them when they migrate south. d)tundra evolved more than once. e)the global air pattern is for air to move from the north to the south.

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings. Plants do photosynthesis several different ways. In particular, we classify plants as C 3 or C 4 plants (in reference to the carbon compound they manufacture at first). C 3 plants do better in cooler environments, C 4 plants in warmer environments. Therefore, we would expect a)forests to be dominated by C 4 plants. b)grasslands to be dominated by C 3 plants. c)estuaries to be dominated by C 4 plants. d)tundras to be dominated by C 3 plants. e)that C 3 and C 4 plants should be present in every biome.

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings. Biomes are affected by disturbance and climate. However, disturbances usually don’t change a biome from one type of biome to another. What would be an exception? a)Temperate forests changed to grassland by frequent fires. b)Grasslands changed to estuaries by frequent floods. c)Chaparrals changed to deserts by frequent earthquakes. d)Boreal forests changed to tundra by frequent snowfalls. e)Tropical rain forest changed to tropical dry forest by frequent hurricanes.

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings. Ecology is often called an integrative science. This means that ecologists a)need to be able to calculate integrals. b)often combine skills and information from other scientific disciplines. c)build theories that integrate ideas from many different biomes. d)study life at very large spatial scales. e)don’t separate the ecosystems they study into their different components.

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings. From this graph (Figure in the textbook), we can conclude that they are trying to convince us that a)some biomes overlap. b)precipitation and temperature determine biomes. c)precipitation determines temperature. d)tundra and tropical forest are different. e)biomes determine precipitation.

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings. The following figure (Figure 52.7 from the textbook) shows the distribution of cattle egrets. One point you can draw from this graph is that cattle egrets a)are moving away from South America and into North America. b)emigrated from South Africa because the Americas are a better habitat. c)cause environmental damage because they are not native. d)don’t seem to like tropical rain forest because they haven’t moved into Brazil. e)didn’t live in the U.S. during the 1800s.