Ecology True or False Questions Help?

Question

I need some help answering the following true or false questions. I do not understand or grasp ecology at all, so any help would be great:

a) A hawk and an owl occupy the same ecological niche ___

b) Decomposers break down nitrogen-containing chemicals in animal waste into simpler chemicals such as ammonia (NH3), then other decomposing bacteria convert ammonia into nitrites, and eventually to nitrates ___

c) Because the denitrification process speeds up when the soil is very acid or water-logged, bogs often lack useful nitrogen ___

d) If fertilizers are carried from the land to an aquatic ecosystem with spring runoff, the population of algae will decrease quickly ___

e) A rapid increase in deer population always indicates the ecosystem is healthy ___

g) Biotic potential is the minimum number of offspring that a species could produce, if resources were unlimited ___

h) Boreal forests receive less precipitation than tundra ___

i) In general, warmer biomes have greater biological diversity ___

Answer 1

As an academic specializing in ecology, I can tell you that ecology is a conceptual field. Memorizing facts will not get you very far, nor will somebody supplying you a list of T's and F's for a given list of questions.

For example, you have to understand predator-prey relationships and trophic cascades to know why a rapid increase in the number of deer in an area is likely an indication that an ecosystem is not healthy. That is, there has probably been a removal or reduction of top predators (e.g., wolf) in the system, releasing the deer population from top-down control. Over time, the deer will probably overgraze the vegetation in the area, leading to other negative effects. For more on this topic, see:

http://www.bioone.org/perlserv/?request=...

I suggest you Google/Wikipedia the various organisms, processes and ecosystem types for yourself. Alternatively, crack open the textbook that must have been assigned for your course. :)

Live life well: e) is _not_ True (unless you happen to consider an ecosystem that is suddenly lacking top predators to be healthy; see my explanation above). Also, you're wrong about g).

Answer 2

im not going to answer the ones im not sure of.

b. T

e. T

g. T

h. F

i.  T