Practice AP Environmental Science population questions on growth calculations, survivorship curves, carrying capacity, fertility, resource limits and ecological 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.
Chickadees are a K-selected species of bird that eat insects and spiders. Spiders consume insects, and many insects consume plants as shown in the following food chain.
Chickadee habitat includes forests and residential yards. Residential yards often contain nonnative plants, which do not naturally exist in an area, but were introduced by humans.
Scientists measured the average number of insects and spiders as related to the percentage of nonnative plants (Figure 1). The scientists also measured the chickadees' average population growth rate (Figure 2) to determine the impact of nonnative plants on chickadee populations.
Figure 1. Percentage of Nonnative Plants and Average Number of Individual Spiders and Insects
Figure 2. Chickadee Population Average Growth Rate and Percentage of Nonnative Plants
Respond to parts A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H, and all subparts.
Describe one reproductive strategy used by a K-selected species such as the chickadee.
Scientists hypothesized that the population of chickadees would be stable or growing with fewer than 25\% nonnative plants. Describe one way that the data in Figure 2 support this hypothesis.
As the human population continues to grow, the demand for animal protein is expected to double by 2050. Animal protein can be obtained from conventional livestock and other sources. The production of all animal protein has environmental costs, as shown in the following graphs. In Figure 1, global warming potential (GWP) is measured in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent . Carbon dioxide equivalent is a measure of the warming effect of a gas relative to that of carbon dioxide. In Figure 2, land use is measured in meters squared ( ).
Global Warming Potential and Land Use from Animal Protein Production
Figure 1
Figure 2
Based on the information provided, identify the type of survivorship curve exhibited by the darkling beetle.
Explain why the reproductive strategy of the darkling beetle is an advantage for using mealworms as an alternative protein source for the rapidly growing human population.
An individual's diet choices affect greenhouse gas emissions and land use.
In the graph below charting the growth of a population of organisms, the line labeled K represents the
biotic potential of the organism
doubling time of the population in the environment
carrying capacity of the population
reproductive lag time of the organism
intrinsic rate of increase of the population in the environment