Of Populations Flashcards
7 cards from real Ecology practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Of Populations flashcards as text
Which of the following describes the 'rescue effect' in metapopulation theory?
Answer: Immigration from other patches reduces local extinction probability in a declining subpopulation
The rescue effect occurs when immigrants from nearby patches supplement a declining local population, lowering its extinction risk.
A cohort life table follows:
Answer: A group of individuals born at the same time throughout their lives
A cohort (dynamic) life table tracks a group of individuals born in the same time period from birth to the death of the last survivor.
Territorial behavior in animals tends to produce which type of population dispersion?
Answer: Uniform
Territories space individuals apart, creating a uniform (evenly spaced) dispersion pattern because individuals actively exclude neighbors.
Which statement about genetic drift is correct in the context of small populations?
Answer: It can fix or eliminate alleles by chance regardless of their adaptive value
Genetic drift causes random changes in allele frequencies; in small populations, alleles can become fixed or lost purely by chance.
The concept of a minimum viable population (MVP) refers to:
Answer: The smallest population that can persist in isolation with a high probability over a defined time period
MVP is the smallest isolated population size that has a statistically high probability (e.g., 95%) of surviving for a given number of years (e.g., 100 years).
In a population with overlapping generations, which of the following is most likely to dampen oscillations around carrying capacity?
Answer: Long-lived adults that buffer the population against annual variation in recruitment
Long-lived adults provide demographic buffering, stabilizing population size even when juvenile recruitment varies widely from year to year.
Which of the following correctly explains why island biogeography theory is relevant to habitat fragmentation?
Answer: Fragmented habitat patches function like islands, with species richness determined by patch size and isolation
MacArthur and Wilson's island biogeography theory predicts that larger, less isolated patches (like larger habitat fragments) support more species at equilibrium.