Mark True (A) or False (B) about the following statements about hypothesis testing.

1.
A good null hypothesis is one that the experimenter believes is highly likely to be rejected by the
outcome of the experiment.
2.
We can use a species fundamental niche as a reasonable initial null hypothesis to predict where
individuals of that species will be found in nature.
3.
Murdoch used strong inference methods in his paper to explore how density-dependent
regulation may occur in insect scale populations.
4.
The advantage of the strong inference method is that the experimenter can propose multiple null
hypotheses at the same time.
Mark True (A) or False (B) about the following statements about Connells study on the distribution of
barnacles.
5.
The most likely explanation for why the two species of barnacles are rarely found in the same
place is that snails eat the dominant competitor.
6.
Abiotic constraints more likely determine how far up in the intertidal zone one can find each
species, but biotic constraints more likely determine how far down they are found.
7.
For both species of barnacles, their realized niche is less than their fundamental niche.
Mark True (A) or False (B) about the Ideal Free Distribution (IFD).
8.
In the Abrahams & Dill experiment, the female fish achieved an IFD even in the presence of a
predator, such that each fish appeared to get about the same amount of food.
9.
In the Abrahams & Dill experiment, the male fish appeared to support the null hypothesis that
fish do not trade off increasing their predation risk to gain more food.
10.
If we have 2 food patches, where one is 3 times richer than the other, and 100 foraging animals,
we would expect 67 animals (i.e., 2/3rds) of the population in the richer patch at an IFD.
11.
Choosing your seat on a city bus is an ideal process because you have all the information about
which seats are taken and which are open.
12.
Interference competition violates the free assumption of an IFD model.
Mark True (A) or False (B) about the population biology of the species represented in this figure (please
note that I deliberately did not put more than one number on the Y-axis!).
18
This species likely has a high r value.
19
This species must have a large carrying capacity for its
population size.
20
If you perturb the species away from its K population
size, one would expect that over time the population is
likely to return to K.
21
If you perturb the species away from its K population
size, one would expect that over time the population is
likely to go extinct.
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23
24

From the graph, one could conclude this species is unlikely to ever experience an Allee effect.
From the graph, future experiments on this population could have as a null hypothesis that
density dependence is present.
Based solely the graph, we could not tell if this species is a predator or an herbivore.

Mark the following as True (A) or False (B) about Levins arguments about the role and value of
mathematical models in ecology.
22.
Models should always strive for maximal accuracy by including every variable that could
possibly affect outcomes.
23.
Models can be vague about the mathematical functions they use to describe biological
phenomena in order to stress general or qualitative properties of systems.
24.
A model is successful if it generates testable predictions, even if the predictions are eventually
not consistent with experimental results.
Mark the following as True (A) or False (B) about a population that has 100 individuals at time t, 150
individuals at time t+1, and r = 1.5. Assume no predators or competing species are present.
28.
The population is growing logistically and not exponentially between time t and t+1.
29.
With only the information given above, we could not calculate a carrying capacity (K) for this
population.
30.
Based on the above information an accurate extrapolation would be 175 animals at time t+2.
31.
We know the current birth rate (b) in the population is 50% greater than the death rate (d).
32.
From the given r value, we know that this is a K-selected species.
33.
We know that this species is an animal and not a plant because population biology models are
applicable to only animals.
Mark the following as True (A) or False (B) about populations.
34.
Kelp beds off the coast of California and coral off the east coast of North America at the same
latitudes are most likely due to abiotic constraints.
35.
Plant populations are particularly vulnerable to rapid climate change because of their poorer
dispersal abilities.
36.
The rapid decline and extinction of the passenger pigeon was an obvious example of density
independent mortality.
37.
Invasive plant populations can be particularly damaging to native ecosystems because of their
ability to alter their abiotic environment.
Mark True (A) or False (B) about the following statements in population biology and species
interactions.
38.
Removing a keystone predator is likely to result in trophic cascade.
39.
The trophic cascades that resulted from removing Pisaster or sea otters were top-down
processes.
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40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.

An Allee effect causes populations to increase more slowly than would be otherwise expected by
an exponential equation.
Gauses experiments with Paramecium showed that one species would always eliminate the
other, but one could not predict which species would win in a particular trial.
The competitive exclusion principle means that a single prey species and a single predator
species cannot coexist forever in the same place.
The interaction between wolves and moose on Isle Royale was an example of populations
cycling in numbers rather than reaching a stable equilibrium.
A holobiont relationship is an example of a mutualism.
In terms of unique genes found normally throughout a human being, there are about the same
number of human genes as there are bacterial genes.

A logging company owns 10,000 km2 tract of forest and want to manage it using the theory of Island
Biogeography. They find that c = 1 for reptiles and c = 0.5 for birds; and z = 0.5 for the forest. Mark
the following as True (A) or False (B).
51.
The company predicts that the forest currently contains 50 species of birds and 100 species of
reptiles.
52.
If the company logs 3600 km2, it predicts it will lose 20% of the bird species and 10% of the
reptile species.
53.
The company predicts that logging will be more likely to cause the extinction of a rare species of
bird than a common one.
54.
If two species of birds have equal population sizes, the company could not predict which one
would be more likely to go extinct as forest size is decreased.
The figure below is of two islands off the coast of a mainland. The islands are identical in size and
habitat. By the theory of Island Biogeography
mark the following as True (A) or False (B).
55.

56.
57.

58.

Island A is less likely to have immigrants

from the mainland land on it than is Island
B.
The species carrying capacity (K) of both
islands will be the same.
For a given species, its population carrying
capacity (K) will be the same for both
islands.
The two islands will have similar distance
filters for immigrants.

Mark the following as True (A) or False (B) about community ecology.
59.
By definition, gamma diversity is expected to be greater than beta diversity.
60.
By definition, beta diversity is expected to be greater than alpha diversity.
61.
A foundational species is defined as the most common species in its community.
62.
A foundational species is unlikely to also be one of a number of functional equivalents as
proposed by Hubbells neutral theory.
Mark True (A) or False (B) about the following experiments in community ecology.
69.
Simberloff found that he could accurately predict the number of arthropod species that would
eventually recolonize his fumigated islands, but could not always predict which individual
species would come back.
70.
Simberloff found that after removing all arthropod species from islands it took more than a
decade for the islands to reacquire the original number of species prior to fumigation.
71.
Hanski & Ranti studied the population dynamics of three species of Daphnia and found that the
three species were never living together on the same island.
72.
On small islands with few pools Hanski & Ranta, often found only one species to be present and
that species was the best at competing.
Mark the following as True (A) or False (B) about diseases in modern day human populations.
73.
Chytrid and White Nose diseases are zoonoses in that stuttering chains of human infections have
been observed.
74.
R0 is an intrinsic characteristic of a disease organism and is unaffected by the density of potential
hosts.
75.
The failure of vaccinations to reduce the death rate of Japanese children from influenza showed
that the herd immunity concept did not work in humans.
76.
The fact that Ebola spread in Africa but not in the United States is an example of herd immunity
being present in the US.
77.
Any disease has the potential to become an epidemic as long as R0 is greater than one.
78.
Lloyd-Smith (2013) argued that vacated niches for humans exist independent of whether or not
they are filled within relevant time scales.
79.
Introduced infectious diseases can cause species extinction.
80.
UCLA can act as a node of transmission for any airborne disease.

1. When the first 1000 humans settled in California there was a resident population of 45,000 sabertoothed cats (= time t), and whose overall population carrying capacity (K) was estimated to be 50,000.
The humans and cats competed for mammoths as prey. The per capita reproductive rate of cats is
unknown. Assume the cat population is accurately described by a Lotka-Volterra competition equation,
how large must have been the competition effect () of humans on the cats for the cat population to
decline in t+1 rather than increase? Please show your work.

2. An acre of tropical rainforest may contain over 100 species of trees. Two almost diametrically
opposed ideas have been proposed to explain how such a diverse community could be stable over time:
(1) Hutchinsons high niche dimensionality; and (2) Hubbells neutral theory. Briefly explain how each
of these would explain this level of diversity.
Outline an experiment or series of observations that would allow you to distinguish between the two
different proposed explanations for the tree diversity in an Amazonian forest. Assume you have an
unlimited budget, manpower assistance, and time!
3. A previous unknown flu-like disease has been contracted by a number of people in North America.
Among the first victims are: farmers raising ducks and geese in Nebraska; pilots flying for a major
North American airline company; members of a bird watching club in California; an alligator hunter in
the Everglades who was bitten by many mosquitos; and the Womens World Cup soccer team from
China. Using this information on infections, please present a null hypothesis for how people contract
this disease and 3 alternative hypotheses suitable for testing.
What data would need to be collected to rule out or support one or more of the alternative hypotheses?
4. There are five (5) bridges that connect New Jersey to New York. The governor of New Jersey closes
several lanes of traffic on one bridge. If all the car drivers are commuting according to an Ideal Free
Distribution, then the governors actions should increase travel times equally across all the five bridges.
However, the closure causes a huge traffic jam on the affected bridge and has no effect on the other four.
Please present a null hypothesis about car driver behavior and three (3) alternative or experimental
hypotheses to explain the observed outcome.