GEOG 370 Exam 1 Study Guide (Spring, 2017)

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INTRODUCTION
The exam is 8 pages long, mostly multiple-choice, with a handful of fill in the blank and
short-answer questions. The exam covers chapters 1-5 of our book and lecture material.
No scantron needed; just a pencil and (if desired) a calculator.

CHAPTER 1
1. OVERVIEW
Vocabulary:
a. environment consists of all the living and nonliving things around us. Continents,
oceans, clouds ice caps. Finite and limited
b. environmental science
c. natural resources (renewable and nonrenewable) goods produced by nature.
Substances and energy sources we need for survival. Renewable resources are
replenished over short periods of time where nonrenewable natural resources are
unavailable after depletion or take a very long time to replenish.
d. ecosystem goods and services the services provided by the earths natural
systems water filtration, groundwater recharging, stormwater control, air
purification, nutrient recycling, crop pollination, and soil enrichment.
e. agricultural revolution change bgan around 10k years ago. People grew crops and
raised domestic animals and lived sedentary lives. Stable food supplies increased
survival, life spans and allowed for more children to be born.
f. industrial revolution mid 1700s. Urbanized society powered by fossil fuels (oil, gas,
coal). Technological advances in sanitation and medicine, enhanced agricultural
production. Increased population growth
g. fossil fuels nonrenewable energy sources of oil coal and natural gas
h. Tragedy of the Commons Because no single person owns a pasture, no one has
incentive to take care of and expand it. Everyone takes what they can until it is
depleted. Overgrazing food production to collapse. UNREGULATED EXPLOITATION OF
PUBLIC RESOURCES LEADS TO DEPLETION AND DAMAGE
i. ecological footprint expresses environmental impact in terms of the cumulative
area of biologically productive land and water required to provide the resources that
a person or population consumes and to dispose of or recycle the waste the person
or population produces people in rich nations have larger ecological footprints. Area
of biologically productive land + water
j. overshoot humans have surpassed earths capacity to sustainably support us.
Using more than producing
k. sustainability using resources only as fast as they can be replenished.
l. What are environmental goods and services and how do we rely on them?
m. Describe world population growth and the tragedy of the commons. World
population growth has gone up exponentially from the time of the industrial
revolution until current day. The better technologies mean longer lives, more food
and less death. Tragedy of the commons comes from people not privately owning an
area such as a pasture. Both people want to use the land but it is someone elses
responsibility to make sure it is taken care of instead of everyone actively
preventing a problem that could occur from overuse.
n. What is an ecological footprint? Expresses environmental impact in terms of the
cumulative area of biologically productive land and water required to provide the
 resources that a person or population consumes and to dispose of or recycle the

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waste the person or population produces.

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o. What is our U.S. & global footprint?
p. How does this link to sustainability?
q. Is Easter Island an example of sustainability? Why or why not? Easter Island is an
example of a community of people who could maintain sustainability. They had lush
forests but the people over consumed and under replenished. The trees
disappeared and from the 31 species of birds, only 1 still around today. Growing
populations and needs led to conflict, warfare and population collapse.
2. SCIENCE
a. Vocabulary: environmentalism, science, experiment, variables, data, theory,
paradigm, ethics, scientific method (observations, questions, hypothesis,
predictions, test, results)
b. Explain environmental science as a discipline and the scientific process.
3. ETHICS
a. Vocabulary: anthropocentrism, biocentrism, ecocentrism, preservation (Muir),
conservation (Pinchot), Land Ethic (Leopold), environmental justice, sustainability
b. What are environmental ethics? Compare and contrast the major ethics.
c. What is environmental justice and how is it linked to environmental science and
policy?

CHAPTER 2
(Skip pages 25-29; Chemistry and the Environment)
1. SYSTEMS
a. Vocabulary: Chesapeake Bay, eutrophication, hypoxia (dead zones), feedback
loops (positive and negative), Earths spheres
b. What is happening to Chesapeake Bay and how are we responding? How is
eutrophication and the nutrient cycle involved?
c. Explain what is happening to the size and number of global ocean dead zones and
how is this phenomenon related to human activities.
d. Compare and contrast negative and positive feedback loops.
2. ENERGY
a. Vocabulary: Kinetic, potential, chemical, autotrophs, photosynthesis, respiration,
heterotrophs
b. Explain how energy and matter move through environmental systems.
c. Discuss energy availability (calories) or food availability (mass; kg) with respect to
trophic level (e.g. primary producer, carnivore)

CHAPTER 2 continued
3. ECOSYSTEMS
a. Vocabulary: Matter and energy cycling, biomass, gross and net primary production,
landscape ecology, ecotones, ecosystem services
b. Discuss ecosystem productivity and the difference between biomass and net
primary production.
c. What ecosystems are the most productive and why?
d. According to the UN Millennium Report Status of Global Ecosystems (2005), how are
our habitats and ecosystem services faring? (in general)
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4. BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLES

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a. Vocabulary: Hydrologic cycle, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles
b. Link nutrient cycles (especially N and P) to Chesapeake Bay pollution and dead
zones.
c. Explain how determining the limiting nutrient can help managers curb
eutrophication.

CHAPTER 3
1. EVOLUTION
a. Vocabulary: Species, population, evolution, natural selection, Darwin and Wallace,
adaptation, mutations, artificial selection, biodiversity, speciation, extinction,
endemic, mass extinction
b. Discuss how mosquito evolution is hindering attempts to control them with
insecticides.
c. What is the difference between a population and a species?
d. Explain biological evolution, natural selection, and artificial selection.
e. How does the California salamander video illustrate key issues in biological
evolution?
f. What is biodiversity and how is it linked to speciation?
g. Describe our history of species extinction and the current status of our global
species (in general)
h. Discuss San Diego County with respect to endemism and biodiversity. High? Low?
Why?
i. What is the purpose of the Endangered Species Act (ESA)?
j. What happened in TVA v. Hill? What did this case confirm about the ESA? What
happened after the case to change the ESA, and what was the fate of the TVA dam
and the snail darter?
k. How has endangered species recovery fared under the Obama Administration and
what are likely rationales for this?
2. ECOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION
a. Vocabulary: Ecology, biosphere, population ecology, community ecology, habitat,
niche, specialist, generalist
b. Discuss these key ecological concepts, providing examples.
c. Explain what is happening overall to our worlds specialist species and how this
might affect biodiversity.
3. POPULATION ECOLOGY
a. Vocabulary: Population size, density, distribution (random, uniform, clumped), sex
ratio, age structure, growth rate, exponential growth, limiting factors, carrying
capacity, ecotourism
b. Explain how population parameters influence population growth and pressures.
c. Discuss what factors control growth rates and calculate population growth if given
appropriate data.
Example: 50/1000 births, 25/1000 immigration, 20/1000 deaths, 5/1000
emigration.
75/1000 25/1000 = 50/1000 and multiply by 100 to express as a %: 5%
(yes, it will be this easy on the test)
d. How do limiting factors influence population growth and how is this linked to
carrying capacity?
e. How well are natural limiting factors controlling bison populations in Yellowstone?
 f. Bison are increasing at 18% per year in Yellowstone. The National Park Service want

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to cull (i.e. eliminate) 18% of the population this year. How does this affect

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population growth?
g. Discuss how wolf reintroduction into Yellowstone is likely to affect bison population
growth.

CHAPTER 4

1. SPECIES INTERACTIONS
a. Vocabulary: Competition, resource partitioning, predation, parasitism, herbivory,
mutualism, symbiosis, pollination
b. Are U.S. wild mustang populations being controlled effectively by limiting factors?
Did we establish a U.S. policy to protect them? What is happening to most
mustangs today? Are current policies effective and affordable? Who manages
them?
c. How are the zebra mussel and quagga mussel linked to exotic species, invasive
species, and competition? Are they an example of resource partitioning?
d. What impacts do these mussels have on native mollusks, ecological communities in
general and human infrastructure?
e. Explain the difference among exploitive competition (predation, parasitism,
herbivory) and mutualism. Give examples.
f. How does predation affect communities, population and evolution?
g. What strategies do prey use to avoid predators?
h. How did the California salamander evolve different defenses against predation as it
moved south? (see video)
i. How is the warming of West Coast waters and eutrophication affecting algal blooms,
marine fauna, and human health and economic welfare?
2. ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITIES* (page 68-74)
(*note that the corresponding lecture material for this topic appears in the chapter 2
powerpoint)
a. Vocabulary: Trophic level, producers, primary and secondary consumers, tertiary
consumers, detritovores and decomposers, biomass, food webs, keystone species,
succession, invasive species, restoration, world biomes.
b. Explain trophic levels and food webs and how energy and mass flows through
environmental systems.
c. Discuss keystone species, historical U.S. policy on wolves and mountain lions, and
the consequent ecological changes due to the loss of these top predators.
d. What is an invasive species and why is Tamarisk (salt-cedar) a good example? Why
is this species successful, what ecosystem is it replacing, and what strategy is being
used to control its spread?
e. Can an invasive species also be critical habitat for threatened and endangered
species?
f. How did the elimination of keystone species such as wolves and mountain lions
affect US deer populations and consequently forest structure, regeneration and
biodiversity?

CHAPTER 5
1. Vocabulary: watershed, maquiladoras, economics and environmental economics,

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ecosystem services, cost-benefit analysis, external costs, greenwashing, policy and

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environmental policy, tragedy of the commons, free riders, legislation, federal
supremacy, regulations, National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), environmental
impact statement (EIS), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), command-and-control,
economic policy tools (green taxes, subsidies, permit trading and cap-and-trade,
ecolabeling, market incentives)
2. Content
a. How did NAFTA and the growth of maquiladoras on the Mexican side of the
border lead to environmental degradation and water quality problems. After
installing a sewage treatment plant at the border, why do we still have pollution
in the Tijuana River following storms?
b. What are the problems with cost-benefit analysis with respect to the
environment?
c. What assumptions of economics contribute to environmental degradation? Give
examples of external costs.
d. Describe the non-market values of the environment
e. Discuss the costs and benefits of businesses going green
f. What are the GDP and GPI and how are there recent trends differing?
g. Explain three rationales for why we might need environmental policy
h. Which economic policy tool has the worst record of resulting in protection or
conservation of US environmental resources?
i. What economic policy tool is California using to control greenhouse gases and is
it effective?
j. Discuss how the legislative, executive and judicial branches of our government
influence environmental policy. Who has supremacy when federal agencies
disagree with state agencies?
k. Discuss the three major types of policy approaches (advantages, disadvantages,
and examples.)
l. Be prepared to answer basic questions about PFOA and the case you read from
the New York Times highlighting linkages among environmental science, the law,
regulations, and justice.