2017 Mock Exam - Marine Ecology 108; page 1 The concepts and questions on the exam will come from the terms and questions listed below except there may be new questions from lecture and readings from remaining meetings. Questions from reading and discussion section (1-3 will be on exam)- 5 or 10 points each Reading - Hughes 1994 According to Hughes, what is the effect (direct or indirect) of heavy fishing in the Caribbean on the abundance of: 1) Diadema 2) Algae 3) Corals What are two other factors (besides fishing) that may have affected the abundance of (any of) these populations? Reading Warner 1984 Explain the following terms in relation to mating strategies: a. protogyny b. protandry c. simultaneous hermaphroditism When is a change of sex favored in sequential hermaphroditism? (You can give an example if it helps you to explain the answer to this question). Reading - Gaines and Bertness 1992 Gaines and Bertness were interested in determining the importance of local retention of larvae in explaining population dynamics of barnacle populations. What was their conclusion and what was the basis of this conclusion? Reading Harvell 1982 Harvell demonstrated that spines are induced in bryozoan colonies by a nudibranch predator. She states that this interaction is one of the few examples of coevolution in the ocean. What four factors does she cite to support this conjecture? What other adaptation would strengthen her argument for coevolution (either one discussed in section or a new one)? Reading Doherty 1983 Doherty manipulated the presence of the damselfish, P. wardi, on patch reefs and compared recruitment (density of recruits) of larval P. wardi to patch reefs with and without residents. What was the result of these manipulations? What did he conclude and what are the broader implications of these results in terms of what limits the size of reef fish populations? Reading Paine 1966 What role did the seastar, Pisaster, play in influencing diversity in the rocky intertidal? How did Paine determine this? In theory, how does keystone predation act to maintain or increase diversity? What sort of conditions are necessary for a predator to have such an effect on a community? Reading Keough and Downes 1982 Explain the differences between recruitment and settlement. Why might measures of these two processes for the same species differ? Reading - Jones et al. 1999 How did Jones et al determine the rate of self-replenishment in Pomacentrus amboinensis at Lizard Island? Reading- Ebert and Russell 1988 Ebert and Russell looked at the relationship between the size frequency distribution of purple sea urchin populations and the location of these populations along the coast. What was the pattern that they found and what was their explanation for this pattern?
2017 Mock Exam - Marine Ecology 108; page 2 Reading Connell 1978 Give examples of two non-equilibrial and two equilibrial hypotheses to explain the maintenance of species diversity. Describe each of your examples thoroughly (i.e. rationale, assumptions, predictions of each hypothesis). Reading He and Cui 2015 What are the implications of research on facilitation along the boundaries of species distribution with increased global change? How did He and Cui test for facilitation along the salt marsh ecotone? What were the abiotic and biotic stressors that the study focused on and what were their conclusions? Be able define or describe (in a true/false, matching, or multiple choice question) the following. 3 points, 15-35 will be on test. 1) Hypothesis 2) Theory 3) Psuedo-replication 4) Population 5) Species 6) Exponential (Malthusian) growth 7) Logistic growth 8) Mutualism 9) Food Web 10) Species Packing/Niche diversification 11) Settlement 12) Recruitment 13) Interference competition 14) Exploitation competition 15) Density-dependent mortality 16) Density-independent mortality 17) Equilibrial models of community organization 18) Non-equilibrial models of community organization 19) Switching predation 20) Keystone predation 21) Lottery hypothesis 22) Storage effect hypothesis 23) Fundamental niche 24) Realized niche 25) Species diversity 26) Species richness 27) Traits of early successional species 28) Traits of late successional species 29) Closed populations 30) Open populations 31) Null hypothesis 32) Inductive reasoning 33) Deductive reasoning 34) Dispersal 35) Statistical power 36) Succession 37) Climax succession state 38) Mutualism 39) Carrying capacity 40) Stability 41) Resistance (with respect to the concept of Stability) 42) Resilience (with respect to the concept of Stability) 43) Elasticity (with respect to the concept of Stability) 44) Amplitude (with respect to the concept of Stability)
45) Type 1 error (statistical) 46) Type II error (statistical) 47) Competitive exclusion 48) Connell s rule for upper and lower limits of species in the intertidal 49) Ecosystem function 50) Thermal performance curve 2017 Mock Exam - Marine Ecology 108; page 3
2017 Mock Exam - Marine Ecology 108; page 4 Compete the following graphs. Items to fill in are listed in the parentheses. In all cases, you need to add an X-axis label, X-scale, Y-axis label, graph line, Figure legend (short description of graph). For scales, it is enough to indicate if the values increase as you move from left to right or from bottom to top (e.g., high versus low). For some graphs, there may be other things you need to add. These will be noted in the question. 2-4 on test, 6-12 points each. 1) Density dependent mortality: (X-axis label, X-scale, Y-axis label, graph line, figure legend (short description of graph) Figure legend: 2) Intermediate disturbance hypothesis: (X-axis label, X-scale, Y-axis label, graph line, figure legend (short description of graph) Figure legend:
2017 Mock Exam - Marine Ecology 108; page 5 3) Graph statistical power with respect to level of replication: (X-axis label, X-scale, Y-axis label, graph line, figure legend (short description of graph) 4) Graph the relationship between Importance to community organization and Environmental harshness: (Xaxis label, X-scale, Y-axis label, graph line, figure legend (short description of graph). Note for this graph there will be multiple lines each should be labeled
2017 Mock Exam - Marine Ecology 108; page 6 5) Graph Logistic Population Growth over time: (X-axis label, X-scale, Y-axis label, graph line, figure legend (short description of graph). Also show the line and symbol representing carrying capacity. 6) Graph Biomass vs Environmental Productivity according to the Oksanen / Fretwell Model: (X-axis label, X-scale, Y-axis label, graph line, figure legend (short description of graph). There should be three separate lines (relationships) one each for (1) plants, (2) herbivores and (3) predators. Each line should be labeled.
2017 Mock Exam - Marine Ecology 108; page 7 7. Graph the predicted relationship between diversity vs. ecosystem function (X-axis label, X-scale, Y-axis label, graph line, figure legend (short description of graph).
2017 Mock Exam - Marine Ecology 108; page 8 Short Answer Questions (1-2 will be on the exam) 5-10 points each 1. Define statistical power and describe the relationship between statistical power and (1) alpha, (2) magnitude of effect (effect size), and (3) level of replication. 2. Describe the process of science from a Popperian perspective. 3. In theory, what is the relationship between diversity and disturbance? Describe the basis for the relationship. Give an example that supports the theory. 4. Describe how succession can lead to loss of diversity and what general processes may lead to increased diversity (these processes are not strictly related to succession). 5. What is the logic of experimental controls? Why do we need them? You may use examples to support your answer. 6. List and describe four mechanisms that may act to increase species diversity. 7. Define stability in terms of resistance, resilience, elasticity and amplitude. 8. Under what conditions are larval (behavioral) cues adaptive (you may use a figure as part of your answer)? 9. Gaines and Roughgarden concluded that rockfish predation affected settlement by the barnacle species Balanus glandula. Describe their experimental results that led to this conclusion. 10. Describe the experiment and the reasoning used by Grosberg to conclude that stratification of larvae in the water column determined the spatial distribution of Balanus glandula and Balanus crenatus on pier pilings in Santa Cruz harbor. 11. Describe the hypothetical general relationship between settlement and subsequent adult density. Indicate on your graph the regions that are dominated by density-dependent and density-independent processes. 12. What are three general models of species vertical zonation in the intertidal? Describe each. 13. Describe how Cowen (1985) used otoliths and El Nino to infer patterns of larval sheephead transport and replenishment of adult populations throughout Baja California and the Southern California Bight. 14. What are the three primary patterns of dispersion (of organisms), what behavioral mechanisms create them, and how are the patterns identified graphically? 15. What are the underlying assumptions of equilibrial and non-equilibrial models for the maintenance of diversity, and how would you test these models? 16. What are the two mechanisms that explain the hypothesized relationship between diversity and ecosystem function? 17. Name one mechanism (each) for how (a) warming and (b) ocean acidification are expected to affected presettlement processes?
2017 Mock Exam - Marine Ecology 108; page 9 Essay Questions (1-2 will be on the exam) 20 points each 1) Menge and others have proposed a set of rules for the importance of various factors in determining the structure of intertidal communities along a gradient of environmental harshness. These rules can be represented graphically. In the figure below: (1) label the x and y axes and indicate direction of scale (e.g. does the scale of the x axis increase as you move from left to right), (2) label each of the three lines. Describe the basis of these rules in the space below the figure. 2) Use the work of Doty, Connell and Grosberg to describe the evolution and chronology of ideas concerning the determination of zonation patterns in rocky intertidal communities. 3) Describe and explain the theoretical relationship between dispersal potential, degree of openness of a population, spatial scale, and stability and population regulation. As part of your answer, you should discuss the conditions when settlement affects adult number. 4) For each of the following four hypotheses generated to explain the maintenance of species diversity (i.e., coexistence of competitors), (1) explain the hypothesis, (2) describe its assumptions, and (3) describe its predictions. A) Niche Diversification B) Compensatory mortality C) Lottery Hypothesis D) Recruitment Limitation 5) On exposed shores: (1) settlers and adults of species A occur between 0 and 3 m mlw, (2) settlers of species B occur between -1 and 2 m mlw and, (3) adults of species B occur between -1 and 0 m mlw. A) Graph the distributions of settlers and adults for species A and B. B) Propose two hypotheses for the maintenance of the upper and lower limits of the adult distributions of species A and B (this means 2 for the upper limit of A, 2 for the lower limit of A etc. 8 total) that are consistent with the patterns. C) Propose tests to distinguish between the two competing hypotheses for the upper limit of species B, OR the lower of species A. 6) Describe how you would design an experiment that would test whether early post-settlement mortality is density-independent (d-i) or density-dependent (d-d) and if predators influence whether the rate of mortality is d-i or d-d.