Midterm Review Topics

On 10/18/22 I talked through a few study topics in class that Zoom friends didn’t hear well. Here they are in writing:

  1. Familiarize yourself with important dates, historical figures, and scientific terms from the slides. There’s a small section where you will define some of these in your own words.
  2. Remember the giant hint I gave in the Western Fisheries Science section – know that main plot/concept – how to interpret it – what it means – and think about practical applications in a real world situation.
  3. We’ve talked a lot about evolution; it came up in the first quiz. This is an important concept that will only be a very small part of the midterm. To clarify evolution: Evolution is a PROCESS that is a result of natural selection. This is not phenotypic plasticity, which is an important concept to review and understand how it links to evolution and natural selection.
  4. Dr. Peter Westley, who wrote most of the midterm, loves the Newfoundland cod story.

Quiz questions:

Question 1: Everyone got this!

Question 2: Store food inside body (fat, giant stomach, adjust metabolism to store food rapidly) Store food outside body (caches, carry it around). Follow a resource wave (migrate, movement, go to other places)

Question 3: One: exponential growth. Two: like a J. Three: resource limitations – run out of space, out of food.

Question 4: Full credit for any idea and any way to test it. Ideally I was going for food web dynamics shaping pool ecosystems and/or habitat limitations tested with reciprocal transplant experiment: Put fishes/mollusks in and take fishes/mollusks out of pools with/without fishes/mollusks.

Question 5: In this question I was looking for you to show me that you understood the PROCESS that gives rise to adaptive evolution is natural selection. Although your answers varied, I gave full credit when I saw evidence that you could break down natural selection into its three premises. Note: there is no order, just wanted to see that you had the pieces clear. Specifically, I was looking for language that showed you understood:

Premise1: there is some competition for limited resources. 

Premise 2: some individuals have traits that increase their survival and reproduce while others that do not have those traits and do not reproduce (or reproduce at a lower rate of success)

Premise 3: if the traits that convey an advantage have heritable (i.e. genetic) linkages then there will be evolution and adaptation to local conditions.

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