ESA Wildlife Ecology & Management 3

Question 1

In wildlife management, 'compensatory mortality' means that:

Accepted Answer

Hunting mortality replaces some natural mortality so total mortality remains similar

Answer

Compensatory mortality hypothesis states that harvested individuals would largely have died from other causes anyway, so total annual mortality rates remain relatively unchanged.

Question 2

The minimum viable population (MVP) concept in conservation biology refers to:

Accepted Answer

The smallest population size with a specified probability of persistence over a defined time period

Answer

MVP is the smallest population size estimated to have a specified probability (e.g., 95%) of survival over a defined period (e.g., 100 years), accounting for demographic and environmental stochasticity.

Question 3

Which ecological process does the Allee effect describe?

Accepted Answer

Reduced individual fitness or population growth rate at very low population densities

Answer

The Allee effect describes positive density dependence at low population sizes, where per capita growth rate decreases as population density falls below a threshold.

Question 4

Habitat suitability models (HSMs) in wildlife ecology are most commonly used to:

Accepted Answer

Predict the spatial distribution of species based on environmental variables

Answer

Habitat suitability models use species occurrence data and environmental predictor variables to predict the probability of suitable habitat across a landscape.

Question 5

Which term describes the phenomenon where a small founding population has reduced genetic diversity due to chance sampling from the original population?

Accepted Answer

Founder effect

Answer

The founder effect occurs when a new population is established by a small number of individuals, capturing only a subset of the original population's genetic variation.

ESA - Ecological Society of America Certified Ecologist Practice Test

ESA - Ecological Society of America Certified Ecologist Practice Test

ESA Wildlife Ecology & Management 3