ANTH Environmental and Ecological Anthropology 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What term describes the process by which humans selectively breed plants and animals for desired traits over generations?
- Domestication (Correct answer)
- Cultivation
- Horticulture
- Pastoralism
Correct answer: Domestication
Domestication involves the genetic modification of wild species through selective breeding to produce plants and animals useful to humans.
Question 2: Which subsistence strategy involves the herding and tending of domesticated animals, often practiced in environments unsuited for agriculture?
- Pastoralism (Correct answer)
- Foraging
- Horticulture
- Intensive agriculture
Correct answer: Pastoralism
Pastoralism is a subsistence strategy based on tending herds of domesticated animals, commonly practiced in grasslands, steppes, and semi-arid regions.
Question 3: The study of how indigenous peoples classify and name plants, animals, and other natural phenomena in their environment is called:
- Ethnobiology (Correct answer)
- Taxonomy
- Ecology
- Biogeography
Correct answer: Ethnobiology
Ethnobiology examines how different cultures perceive, classify, and use biological organisms in their environments.
Question 4: What does 'carrying capacity' mean in the context of human ecology?
- The maximum population size that an environment can sustainably support (Correct answer)
- The amount of resources a community can transport during migration
- The capacity of a culture to adopt new environmental technologies
- The weight load that subsistence farmers can carry per unit area
Correct answer: The maximum population size that an environment can sustainably support
Carrying capacity refers to the maximum number of people (or other organisms) that a given environment can sustainably support without degradation.
Question 5: Which practice involves the periodic burning of vegetation to clear land for cultivation and stimulate new plant growth, used widely by tropical horticulturalists?
- Swidden (slash-and-burn) agriculture (Correct answer)
- Intensive irrigation farming
- Pastoralism
- Agroforestry
Correct answer: Swidden (slash-and-burn) agriculture
Swidden agriculture (slash-and-burn) involves clearing land by cutting and burning vegetation, cultivating it for a few years, then leaving it fallow to regenerate.
Question 6: Garrett Hardin's influential 1968 essay 'The Tragedy of the Commons' argued that:
- Shared resources are inevitably overexploited when individuals act in self-interest (Correct answer)
- Common property systems are more efficient than private ownership
- Traditional societies successfully managed common resources through cultural rules
- Environmental degradation results from government mismanagement of public lands
Correct answer: Shared resources are inevitably overexploited when individuals act in self-interest
Hardin argued that individuals, acting rationally in their own self-interest, will deplete shared resources, leading to collective ruin.
ANTH Environmental and Ecological Anthropology 2
What term describes the process by which humans selectively breed plants and animals for desired traits over generations?