Name: ____________________________________
Class: _____________
Date: _____________
Self Assessment: Ecology
1. What is the relationship of a community to an ecosystem?
a) The food chain and dominant populations of a community form an ecosystem.
b) The living members of an ecosystem form a community.
c) An ecosystem consists of nonliving things and a community consists of living things.
d) The nonliving things in an ecosystem form a community.
2. What role does a tree play in an ecosystem?
a) producer
b) decomposer
c) parasite
d) consumer
3. In which situation will a population's growth achieve equilibrium?
a) The number of members dying equals the number of those being produced.
b) The population is in competition with that of a similar species.
c) All of the members survive to produce offspring.
d) The number of members increases to the point that reproduction is exponential.
4. What relationship is exemplified by a duck who lays her eggs beneath the branches of a thick shrub?
a) commensalism
b) parasitism
c) mutualism
d) competition
PAGE 1
Name: ____________________________________
Class: _____________
Date: _____________
Self Assessment: Ecology
5. Which of the following ecological interactions would fit in the empty place in the table?
a) competition
b) commensalism
c) parasitism
d) decomposition
6. Which case describes density dependent limits to a population?
a) An oil spill depletes a bird population along a coast.
b) Freezing weather kills a region's citrus trees.
c) A population is reduced by an infectious disease.
d) A forest fire destroys a rodent population.
7. Which group forms a population?
a) all of one species of tree in a national forest
b) all of the livings things at the bottom of a riverbed
c) all of the long haired mammals at a zoo
d) the people, plants, and books in a library
8. An individual of a seed eating bird species will experience most competition for food from _____.
a) a member of its own species
b) a species that feeds on seeds for 75% of its diet
c) a species eating the leaves of seed producing plants
d) a species of fruit eating bird
PAGE 2
Name: ____________________________________
Class: _____________
Date: _____________
Self Assessment: Ecology
9. When farmland is abandoned, it may first grow grasses, then shrubs, then a series of larger trees, until the
area becomes a forest. What is this process called?
a) population growth
b) primary succession
c) secondary succession
d) climax community
10. A food web is one way of describing ecological interactions. What is an ecological interaction that would
NOT be described in a food web?
a) competition
b) predation
c) decomposition
d) parasitism
PAGE 3
ANSWER KEY
1. b
2. a
3. a
4. a
5. a
6. c
ANSWER KEY Page 1
7. a
8. a
9. c
10. a