Natural Resource Management Flashcards
7 cards from real CORE practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Natural Resource Management flashcards as text
Which federal agency is primarily responsible for managing National Forests in the United States?
Answer: U.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service, part of the USDA, manages the 193-million-acre National Forest System under a multiple-use, sustained-yield mandate.
What is 'carrying capacity' in the context of wildlife management?
Answer: The number of animals a habitat can sustain without degradation over time
Carrying capacity (K) is the maximum population size an environment can support indefinitely given available food, water, shelter, and space.
A watershed is best described as:
Answer: The land area that drains into a common body of water
A watershed is the entire land area from which precipitation drains to a single point, such as a river, lake, or estuary.
Which of the following best describes the concept of 'multiple use' in federal land management?
Answer: Balancing several uses such as recreation, grazing, mining, and wildlife conservation
Multiple use means federal lands are managed to serve a combination of purposes — timber, grazing, minerals, recreation, and fish and wildlife — without one use permanently impairing another.
What is the primary purpose of a wildlife corridor?
Answer: To connect fragmented habitats so animals can move safely between them
Wildlife corridors link isolated habitat patches, allowing animals to travel, find mates, and maintain genetic diversity without crossing dangerous roads or developed land.
Prescribed (controlled) burns are used in natural resource management primarily to:
Answer: Reduce fuel loads and mimic natural fire cycles that maintain ecosystem health
Prescribed burns reduce accumulated fuels that could feed catastrophic wildfires and restore fire-dependent plant communities that require periodic burning to thrive.
Which best describes the role of apex predators in an ecosystem?
Answer: They control prey populations and indirectly shape habitat structure through trophic cascades
Apex predators regulate herbivore populations, which in turn affects vegetation, stream health, and biodiversity — a chain of effects called a trophic cascade.