Additional questions for the final test

Please note that the final test is cumulative and covers all topics in this class. Please use your study guides for tests 1-4 plus this additional study guide to review all the test topics. A list of formulas will be provided for your reference (click here to view the list) during the final test. You will need to know those formulas which we have covered in the class, but which are not included in this list. 

1. Define ecological niche of a species. Why is it often called an n-dimensional hypervolume?
2. Define and compare fundamental and realized niche of a species. How can you determine these niches?
3. Explain how competition can restrict ecological niche of the species. Use McArthur’s study of warblers as an example.
4. Define competitive exclusion and character displacement. Using an example of Darwin’s finches and an example from your take-home assignment to explain how character displacement allows species to co-exist and how it affects their realized ecological niches.
5. List 6 criteria (evidence) that needs to be provided to prove character displacement. Use the example of the ground finches to illustrate each of the 6 criteria.
6. Define a community. Explain how food webs can be used to describe functional links between species in the community. Explain what are other possible links (=interactions) between species which are not covered by the food web. What is a guild? What is a life form?
7. List three main descriptors of the community structure. Be able to calculate and compare species richness, species evenness and species diversity in communities using Shannon-Wiener index of species diversity.
8. Be able to compare to determine similarity between two communities using Sorenson’s community coefficient (CC).
9. Explain how disturbance and species heterogeneity affect species diversity of communities. Why is species richness increasing with increasing habitat complexity (hint: think in terms of available ecological niches)?
10. Explain how soil fertility affects plant diversity and why.
11. Explain the keystone species concept. Explain how intermediate level of disturbance due to the presence of keystone species supports high biological diversity.
12. Explain how level of disturbance affects species diversity. At which disturbance level the highest species diversity is observed? Give an example of the effects of disturbance on spices richness and diversity in intertidal algae and invertebrates.