Practice AP Environmental Science questions on generalist and specialist species, niche breadth, habitat fragmentation, and vulnerability to environmental change.
Habitat destruction and fragmentation can have many different effects on species.
Describe a characteristic of a specialist species that would make the specialist species more likely to be negatively affected by habitat fragmentation than a generalist species.
A rapidly growing suburban municipality purchases nearby forested land and proposes a newly planned housing development, which would involve clear-cutting much of the area for the construction of single-family homes. While evaluating the land, the development committee discovers that development will encroach upon the habitat of a wood thrush population. The wood thrush is a solitary, territorial bird whose preferred habitat consists of large, intact densely forested areas. Wood thrush populations are also threatened by cowbirds. A cowbird lays her egg in an existing nest of a wood thrush. After the cowbird egg hatches, the cowbird pushes the unhatched wood thrush eggs out. The wood thrush parents raise the cowbird hatchling as their own.
Accept one of the following:
- Specialists have narrow ecological niches compared to broad niches of generalist species, which are reduced even further by habitat fragmentation.
- Specialists with specialized adaptations are unable to adapt quickly, making them more vulnerable to habitat fragmentation than generalists that adapt quickly.
- Specialists tend to have small populations with less genetic variation than generalist species with larger populations and more genetic variation, making specialists more vulnerable to habitat fragmentation.