Practice Test Geeks(CFP) Certified Fisheries Professional Practice Test
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Geographic Information Systems Flashcards

7 cards from real CFP practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.

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  1. Which GIS-based spatial statistic measures whether fish sampling points are clustered, dispersed, or randomly distributed across a study area?

    Answer: Average nearest neighbor index

    The Average Nearest Neighbor (ANN) index compares observed inter-point distances to expected random distances, indicating clustering, dispersion, or randomness.

  2. In a GIS stream classification project, a fisheries biologist assigns each reach a Rosgen stream type. What GIS data layers are most essential for this?

    Answer: DEM-derived slope, bankfull channel dimensions, and substrate data

    Rosgen classification requires channel slope (from DEM), entrenchment ratio, width-to-depth ratio, sinuosity, and substrate, most of which are derivable from GIS layers.

  3. A GIS layer showing fish species presence/absence records is joined to a catchment attribute table containing land use percentages. What type of relationship does this enable modeling?

    Answer: Species-habitat relationships linking land use to occurrence patterns

    Joining species occurrence to catchment land use attributes allows statistical modeling of how land cover composition influences fish presence or absence.

  4. What is the primary advantage of using LiDAR-derived bare-earth DEMs over traditional topographic maps for stream habitat mapping?

    Answer: LiDAR offers much higher resolution elevation data, revealing fine-scale channel morphology

    LiDAR can produce sub-meter resolution DEMs that reveal channel banks, floodplain microtopography, and habitat features invisible on standard topographic maps.

  5. A fisheries manager uses GIS to compute 'connectivity' between fragmented wetland patches. Which metric best quantifies this?

    Answer: Least-cost path distance between patches through the surrounding landscape matrix

    Least-cost path analysis finds the route of minimum resistance between patches through a resistance surface representing landscape permeability for species movement.

  6. When building a predictive habitat model for a rare fish species using GIS, overfitting the model to training locations is best diagnosed by:

    Answer: Evaluating model performance on withheld test data using AUC or other metrics

    Testing model performance on independent withheld data using metrics like AUC-ROC detects overfitting when training performance far exceeds test performance.

  7. Which protocol ensures positional accuracy when collecting fish habitat waypoints with a GPS receiver in the field for GIS use?

    Answer: Recording points with PDOP ≤4 and averaging multiple readings

    A PDOP (Position Dilution of Precision) ≤4 indicates good satellite geometry, and averaging multiple readings reduces random error in GPS positions.