Biology 280, Dr. Murray, Fall 2011

To prepare for the fourth (and final) exam, follow my advice on exam-taking in general and that given on the guides for preparing for the other exams. Start well in advance and work hard at it. Unless you're unusual, studying for just 3-4 hours the night before the exam just won't cut it!

The exam will be mostly multiple-choice (I have to grade it fast!), but may also include a short (e.g., 1 paragraph) essay or two or some short fill-in questions over the readings and lectures. No material specifically from lab will be covered, though sometimes lecture and lab material overlap.  As promised, this exam is cumulative (i.e., it covers the whole semester), though it will stress the material since the third exam (beginning with the introduction to logistic population growth in topic 17: Population regulation)  most heavily.  And as usual, it covers the lectures and readings associated with them.  Readings associated with topics that we didn't get to in lecture will not be fair game, as I said in class.   

Also be sure that you have read chapters 16-20 of Weiner’s book. As was the case for previous exams, I'm less concerned with small details (though sometimes it’s hard for people to agree about what constitutes a "little detail"), but rather that you understand the general points that Weiner makes and especially that you make the connections between Weiner’s book and what we’re covering in class. Being able to illustrate the concepts we've covered in class and in the textbook with examples from Weiner is important.

Because this exam is cumulative, you should look over your lecture notes, highlights on reading assignments, exams and quizzes, etc. from previous parts of the course.  You should also reflect on the major themes of the course, like the relationship between ecology and evolution, evolution by natural selection, where genetics fits in, etc.

In addition to the material you were responsible for on previous exams, you should be comfortable with the following Key Concepts covered since the last exam:

• Mathematical models of exponential and logistic population growth, in both "birth-flow" vs. "birth-pulse" populations.
• Broad concepts of demography: age-specific patterns of mortality and reproduction that determine population growth rate, age structure, sex ratio, etc.
• Utility of life table analysis for understanding demographic patterns (though most of this happened in lab).
• Major patterns of survivorship in organisms (survivorship curves), and examples of organisms exhibiting each of them.
• Processes that drive exponential growth, and how we model it mathematically.  You should be able to understand and use any equations from the lecture or book.  Remember, however, that I'll give you any equations needed.
• The process of logistic population growth and how we model it, including the importance of carrying capacity, intraspecific competition, etc. You should understand and be able to use the logistic equation.
• The first part of the topic on demography and life history strategies - what constitutes a life history trait or tactic, and that they evolve to allocate energy to reproductive and somatic functions optimally in order to  maximize fitness.
• The evolution of life history strategies - what constitutes a life history trait or tactic, what ecological factors select for the evolution of particular kinds of traits, etc. You should be able both to predict what kinds of traits might evolve under a given set of circumstances as well as to give examples of organisms with particular kinds of life history traits. You should be especially familiar with several areas within life history theory:
  • The evolution of semelparity vs. iteroparity
  • The evolution of clutch sizes in birds
  • comprehensive theories of life history evolution like r-K selection.
• Current patterns in human demography, and projections for future population size, etc.
• The nature of biological communities, including the "individualistic" and "interactive" hypotheses and the kinds of interactions between species.
• The kinds of interactions among species (mutualism, competition, exploitation, etc.) and how they are distinguished from one another.
• The concept of coevolution - what it is, what processes drive it, and examples of adaptations that have likely arisen through it.
• Aposematic and cryptic coloration (and the other characteristics that go along with them, like behavior) patterns, and what drives their evolution.
• Batesian, Mullerian, and aggressive mimicry - what they are and what factors lead to their evolution.
• Modes of competition, e.g., interference (contest) and exploitative (scramble) - what distinguishes them from one another and what factors lead to the evolution of characteristics that define each.
• The ecological niche - how niches are defined, and how organisms react to overlap between their own and other species' niches, e.g., resource partitioning, character displacement, etc.
• The ecological guild - what it is and how the concept is useful in understanding how community structure is regulated.
• What is meant by community structure, and what influences it.
  "Equilibrium" vs. "non-equilibrium" hypotheses for the regulation of community structure, including interspecific competition, predation, physical disturbance, and recruitment limitation.  You should also be able to give examples of each, recognizing that several of them may operate simultaneously.
• What constitutes an ecosystem (what components do they have), and what key biological processes are we concerned with at the ecosystem level?
• You should understand food webs and trophic levels as ways of understanding pathways of energy and materials flow.  The inefficiency of energy transfer from trophic level to trophic level has profound consequences for the structure of food webs and communities - indeed the whole world around us, and you should understand it's causes and consequences.
• How do we measure the efficiency of energy use by a trophic level, or that of it's transfer from one level to another?
• What is "production" in the biological sense?  How do we measure it and what do differences in productivity of different ecosystems mean?  Which kinds of ecosystems on earth are most productive and why?  Which are least productive, and why?
• General features of biogeochemical cycles (characterized by "reservoirs" and flux rates among them) as well as of the most important ones in particular - water, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus.  Pay particular attention to the global carbon cycle and it's importance for climate.
• You should also understand that pollutants cycle through ecosystems too, and that many of them become concentrated in the tissues of organisms at higher trophic levels through a process called "biomagnification."  Understand its connection to the trophic structure of ecosystems, as well as to the chemical characteristics of the pollutants themselves and organisms' physiological capabilities for dealing with them.
• You should also understand the ecosystem-level consequences of replacing natural communities with human-created ones, especially for nutrient cycling.