L1: Introduction

Question 1

What is ecology?

Answer 1

The study of the relationships between organisms and their environment.

Question 2

Who coined the term ecology (oekologie, meaning relation of the animal both to its organic as well as its inorganic environment)?

Answer 2

Ernst Haeckel

Question 3

Who first described the interrelationships between organisms and their nonliving environment?

Answer 3

Theophrastus

Question 4

Who theorized the conflict between expanding populations and the capability of the Earth to supply food?

Answer 4

Thomas Malthus

Question 5

What is Malthusianism?

Answer 5

Malthusian Theory. It states that population growth will always tend to outrun the food supply and that betterment of humankind is impossible without stern limits on reproduction.

Question 6

Who is the father of botany?

Answer 6

Theophrastus

Question 7

Who is the father of biogerontology?

Answer 7

Raymond Pearl

Question 8

Who developed the prey-predator model?

Answer 8

Alfred Lotka
Vito Volterra

Question 9

What is biogerontology?

Answer 9

The study of the biological bases of ageing and age-related diseases

Question 10

They applied mathematics to ecology

Answer 10

Raymond Pearl
Alfred Lotka
Vito Volterra

Question 11

They developed the concept of animal behavior (ethology)

Answer 11

Konrad Lorenz
Nikolaas Tinbergen

Question 12

Who conceptualized imprinting?

Answer 12

Konrad Lorenz

Question 13

Who studied the role of social behavior in the regulation of populations through epideictic displays?

Answer 13

Vero Wynne-Edwards

Question 14

What is group selection?

Answer 14

Natural selection at the level of groups

Many behaviors evolved for the good of a species as a whole

Question 15

Who introduced the concept of trophic levels and how energy is transferred from producers to consumers?

Answer 15

August Thienemann

Question 16

What are trophic levels?

Answer 16

An organism’s number of steps from the start of the food chain

Question 17

Who developed the concept of ecological niches and pyramids of numbers & the food chain and food web concept?

Answer 17

Charles Elton

Question 18

Who measured the energy budget of lakes, developed the idea of primary productivity, and developed limnology?

Answer 18

Edward Birge
Chancey Juday

Question 19

What is limnology?

Answer 19

The study of inland aquatic ecosystems

Question 20

Who developed the trophic-dynamic concept of ecology?

Answer 20

Raymond Lindeman

Question 21

What is Lindeman’s 10% Law?

Answer 21

Only 10% of energy is transferred from one trophic level to another

Question 22

Who quantified field studies of energy flow through ecosystems?

Answer 22

Eugene Odum
Howard Odum

Question 23

Who is the father of modern ecology?

Answer 23

Eugene Odum

Question 24

Who studied the Nutrient Cycle?

Answer 24

J.D. Ovington

Question 25

What is the ecological hierarchy?

Answer 25

Individual Population Interactions Community Ecosystem Landscape Region Biosphere

Question 26

A branch of ecology that deals with the study of how organisms survive in their environments, with emphasis on extreme conditions

Answer 26

Physiological Ecology

Question 27

A branch of ecology that deals with the study of the factors that drive behavioral adaptation and how individuals find their food and avoid predators

Answer 27

Behavioral Ecology

Question 28

A branch of ecology that deals with the study of the environmental factors that drive species adaptations and how populations have changed genetically over several generations

Answer 28

Evolutionary Ecology

Question 29

Also called autecology. A branch of ecology that deals with the study of a single species and why some species are rare while others are abundant

Answer 29

Population Ecology

Question 30

A branch of ecology that deals with the study of the evolutionary effects of interactions on a species and on population structure or properties of ecological communities

Answer 30

Ecology of Interactions

Question 31

Also called synecology. A branch of ecology that deals with the study of the subsets of organisms and what ecological factors determine how many species are present in an area

Answer 31

Community Ecology

Question 32

A branch of ecology that deals with the study of large-scale ecological issues such as biomass, energy flow, and nutrient cycling

Answer 32

Ecosystem Ecology

Question 33

A branch of ecology that deals with the study of landscape structure and processes

Answer 33

Landscape Ecology

Question 34

A branch of ecology that deals with the study of the relationship between organisms and their environment across the biosphere.

Answer 34

Geographic Ecology

Question 35

A branch of ecology that deals with the prevention of species extinction

Answer 35

Conservation Ecology

Question 36

A branch of ecology that deals with the interdisciplinary study of the ecology of the earth's atmosphere boundary

Answer 36

Aeroecology

Question 37

A branch of ecology that deals with the study of urban areas

Answer 37

Urban Ecology