Geology 2206
Final exam study guide
The final exam will be from 3:00 to 4:45 PM on
Tuesday, 11 December 2012 in Founders Hall room 2168. The final exam will be about double the
size of a normal test. Everything
covered in lecture & in readings in the biologic oceanography
topics/chapters will be fair game for test questions. The final exam will also include many
repeat questions from Test # 1 and Test # 2. The questions may be rephrased (or
not). The answers to multiple
choice questions may be rearranged (or not). Use the answer sheets included with your
previous tests to learn from any mistakes you made.
<<IF YOU NEED TO TAKE THE TEST IN THE TESTING CENTER, PLEASE REMIND
ME, OTHERWISE THE PAPERWORK WON’T GET DONE>>
Test questions will cover (but are not necessarily
limited to) the following:
What is taxonomy? Who invented the modern system
of biologic classification? When did he invent this system?
How many domains of life are there on Earth?
What are the three domains? What are their characteristics? What
are procaryotes? What are eucaryotes? How do procaryote and
eucaryote cells fundamentally differ?
How many kingdoms of life are there on Earth?
What are the 6 commonly designated kingdoms of life? What are their
definitions? Which eucaryote kingdoms include photosynthesizing
organisms? Which ones don't?
What is a species? What is the only
"natural" taxonomic unit in this system
(Kingdom-Phylum-Class-Order-Family-Genus-Species)?
How many species have been named & described from
Earth's oceans?
What is plankton? Planktonic organisms do what
in the oceans?
What is nekton? Nektonic organisms do what in
the oceans?
What is the benthos? Benthic organisms are where
in the oceans?
What are the fundamental characteristics of
plankton? What size are they in general? Can they all strongly
control horizontal motion in the ocean water column? Can vertical
position in the water column be controlled by many plankton?
What are phytoplankton? To what kingdom of life
do they belong? How do they eat? Where in the water column do they
live? What does autotrophic mean? (they make their own food)
What are zooplankton? To what kingdoms of life
do they belong? How do they eat? Where in the water column do they
live? What does heterotrophic mean? (they have to eat - they don’t
make their own food)
What are bacterioplankton? To what kingdom of
life do they belong? How do most of these eat?
What are virioplankton?
What are holoplankton? What are meroplankton?
What are macroplankton? Examples?
What are microplankton? What are
nannoplankton? What are ultraplankton & picoplankton?
What is nekton? What factors limit the
distribution of nektonic organisms? Examples of nekton?
What are benthos (benthic organisms)? What is
epifaunal? What is infaunal? What is nektobenthic?
Where do benthic plants live? Where do benthic
animals live?
What provides the basic support for all organisms in
the oceans?
What specific kinds of buoyancy mechanisms do marine
organisms use to maintain their positions in the water column?
Is temperature an important factor controlling the
presence & behavior of marine organisms?
What is stenothermal? What is eurythermal?
Do warm waters have a higher or lower diversity of
organisms compared with elsewhere? Are plankton larger or smaller in warm
waters? Do organisms grow relatively quickly or slowly in warm
waters? Do organisms have relatively short or long life expectancies in
warm waters?
Do cold waters have a higher or lower diversity of
organisms compared with elsewhere? Are plankton larger or smaller in cold
waters? Do organisms grow relatively quickly or slowly in cold
waters? Do organisms have short or long life expectancies in cold waters?
With increasing temperatures, does the metabolism of
organisms increase or decrease?
Can organisms tolerate cold stress better or warm
stress better?
Do shallow waters or deeper waters change
temperature more on a daily basis?
On a yearly basis?
What is the average temperature of deep waters, ~all
the time?
What is euryhaline? What is stenohaline?
What is isotonic? What is hypotonic? What
is hypertonic?
Are marine fish isotonic, hypotonic, or hypertonic?
Are freshwater fish isotonic, hypotonic, or
hypertonic?
Why is it important for many organisms to blend in
with their environment?
Why do some organisms have transparent bodies?
Examples?
Why do some organisms have camouflage of colors or
attached shells/rocks/algae on their bodies? Why do some organisms mimic the behavior
of other organisms?
What is countershading? How does it work to hide
an organism?
What is reverse countershading?
What is disruptive coloration? How does it work
to hide an organism?
How do deep ocean creatures deal with incredibly high
water pressures? How quickly does water pressure increase with depth?
Be familiar with the broad subdivisions of the marine
environment.
What are pelagic environments? What are benthic
environments?
What is the neritic province? What is the
oceanic province?
What is the euphotic zone? Does photosynthesis
occur here?
What is the disphotic zone? Does photosynthesis
occur here?
What is the aphotic zone? Does photosynthesis
occur here?
What is the epipelagic zone? Does photosynthesis
occur here? Is bioluminescence common here?
What is the mesopelagic zone? Does
photosynthesis occur here? Is bioluminescence common in this zone and in
deeper zones?
What are the bathypelagic & abyssopelagic zones?
Organisms that live down there are characterized by what?
Why is bioluminescence used by organisms?
What is the subneritic province? What is the
suboceanic province?
What is the littoral zone? What is the
sublittoral zone? What is the bathyal zone? What are the abyssal
and hadal zones?
Does biomass increase or decrease with depth?
What is photosynthesis? What exactly goes on
during photosynthesis? What ingredients are needed? What is
created? What waste products are produced?
Be familiar with specific examples of photosynthetic
marine organisms.
What are angiosperms? Marine examples?
What are phaeophytes? What colors are
they? Examples?
What are chlorophytes? What colors are
they? Are some chlorophytes
calcareous?
What are rhodophytes? Are they a common or
scarce group of marine macroalgae? What colors are they? Are some rhodophytes calcareous?
What are chrysophytes? Do they use chlorophyll
as a photosynthesizing pigment? Examples? What are diatoms?
What are their characteristics? What are coccolithophorids? What
are their characteristics?
What are pyrrhophytes? Example?
Characteristics? What is a red tide? What causes it? What are
dinoflagellates? Do dinoflagellates pose a health risk to other marine
organisms and/or people?
Is most marine photosynthesis occurring in bacteria?
What are producers? Examples? What are
autotrophs? What is photosynthesis? What is chemosynthesis?
What are heterotrophs?
What are herbivores? What are carnivores?
What are omnivores? What are bacteriovores? What are decomposers?
What are filter feeders (suspension feeders)?
What are deposit feeders (detritus feeders; mud
eaters)?
Be familiar with the concepts of the food chain, the
food pyramid, and the food web.
What is symbiosis? What is commensalism?
Example? What is mutualism? Example? What is
parasitism? Example?
What are pelagic organisms? Where do they
live? Do most live near the surface, near the bottom, in-between, etc.?
Be familiar with the various specific ways that
pelagic organisms stay above the seafloor (have rigid gas containers,
swim bladders/air bladders, fat-filled organs, soft/gelatinous bodies, small
size, spiny bodies, or by active swimming).
Examples of actively swimming pelagic organisms?
Be familiar with the basic characteristics of squid
(Phylum Mollusca, Class Cephalopoda). What do they eat? What are
their bodies, tentacles, & mouth like? How do they swim?
Be familiar with the basic characteristics of fish
(Phylum Chordata, Subphylum Vertebrata). How do they swim? What are
the paired fish fins used for (pectroal fins & pelvic fins)?
What are the single vertical fish fins used for (dorsal fin, anal fin)?
What is the caudal fin? Are all fishes' caudal
fins basically the same shape? Be
familiar with & be able to recognize the following caudal fin
styles/shapes: rounded fin, truncate fin, forked fin, lunate fin, heterocercal
fin.
What is the predatory behavior of lungers? Example of a lunger?
What is the predatory behavior or cruisers? Example of a cruiser?
Be familiar with the basics of swimming speeds in
fish.
What are cold-blooded fish? Are they fast
swimmers in general? Are all fish cold-blooded?
What are warm-blooded fish? Are they fast
swimmers in general? Examples?
What physical conditions do deep-sea fish have to live
with? Is food abundant in deep-sea environments? What are the
sources of food in deep-sea environments? Because it's dark down there,
how do deep-sea fish detect movement around them? Do many deep-sea fish
have bioluminescence? Why? What's it used for?
Do deep sea fish have eyes, or are they blind?
What are the general body features of most deep sea
fish?
How do marine pelagic prey organisms avoid being
eaten?
What is schooling? What are the advantages of
schooling?
What other methods are used by pelagic prey creatures
to deter/avoid predators?
What are the physical features of mammals? Do any
mammals live in the oceans?
What are carnivores (the taxonomic group)?
Examples? How do they avoid freezing to death while in cold ocean water?
What are sirenians? Examples? Do they live
in generally warm waters or cold waters? Are they meat-eaters or
plant-eaters?
What are cetaceans? Examples? What are the
characteristics of their bodies?
Can cetaceans dive to deep depths? Can they hold
their breath for long?
Can they deal with some diving diseases?
What are the toothed whales (Class Mammalia, Order
Cetacea, Suborder Odontoceti)? Examples? Physical
characteristics? Are they social animals or solitary? Do they have
a well-developed vocalization ability? What's it used for?
What are the baleen whales (Suborder Mysticeti)?
Are baleen whales larger or smaller than toothed whales, in general?
Examples of baleen whales? Largest one? Physical
characteristics? What do they eat? Do baleen whales have
teeth? What do they have in their mouths? What is baleen?
What's it made of? How's it used to capture food for a baleen whale?
Are most marine organisms pelagic or benthic?
What types of benthic substrates are there?
Most benthic organisms occur in the photic zone or
below the photic zone?
Are most organisms on rocky, hard substrates infaunal
or epifaunal? What are vagrants?
What are encrusters?
What is the spray zone (supratidal zone)? When
is it covered by water?
What is the high tide zone? When is it covered
by water?
What is the middle tide zone? When is it covered
by water? When is it dry?
What is the low tide zone? When is it covered by
water? When is it dry?
How do organisms deal with desiccation (drying out) in
the intertidal zone?
From the supratidal zone down to the low tidal zone,
does biologic diversity increase?
Does biomass increase? Does
competition for space increase?
Be familiar with some common rocky shore organisms:
limpets, periwinkle snails, barnacles, nerite snails, rock weeds, chitons,
mussels, starfish, sea anemones, hermit crabs, sea urchins, shore crabs.
Is the intertidal zone along a soft substrate beach
broadly similar or very different from that seen along rocky substrate beaches?
Do soft-substrates/sediment-covered substrates have a
higher- or lower-diversity biota than seen on rocky substrates? Can there
be high numbers of organisms in sediment-covered substrates?
Are most sediment-covered substrate organisms
epifaunal or infaunal?
Why are most sandy beach organisms infaunal
(burrowers)? What are the advantages to being under the sediment on a
sandy beach? Examples of burrowing sandy beach organisms?
What is meiofauna? Are their bodies large or
small? What do they feed on? Do they only occur at sandy beaches?
(no - they occur from beaches to the deep sea)
What are mudflats? (shorelines with fine-grained
sediments - silt & clay = mud).
What organisms occupy muddy shorelines?
What are hardgrounds and rockgrounds?
Kelp and kelp forests are most common in what marine
environment? How do kelp keep their bodies on the seafloor? Do kelp
grow quickly? Do they have large bodies? How do they keep their
bodies upright?
Are lobsters & crabs & oysters common in
subtidal rocky bottom environments?
What are the general characteristics of oysters?
What are the general characteristics of corals?
Many corals make a hard skeleton composed of what mineral? What are the
characteristics of the corals' soft parts?
What physical conditions are most favorable for coral
reef growth?
What three areas of the world's oceans have the
greatest concentrations of coral reefs?
Hermatypic corals are characterized by what?
What are zooxanthellae?
The largest coral reef structure on Earth is
what? Where is it? How big is it?
Do coral reef environments have a high species
diversity?
What are the physical conditions of the deep ocean
seafloor? What are the food sources there?
What are hydrothermal vent communities? Where
are they located? What organisms there are at the base of the food
pyramid? What physical conditions are encountered at hydrothermal
vents? Is the water hot? Is the water acidic? Are there high
concentrations of toxic chemicals and metals? What kinds of odd organisms
live here?
What are black smokers? What are white
smokers? Is the "smoke" really smoke?
Are the microbes that live here photosynthetic or
chemosynthetic?
Where have hydrothermal vent communities been
observed?
What are hypersaline seep communities? Is the
water hot here? How salty is the water seeping out? What chemicals
are concentrated in the water? Are the microbes here photosynthetic or
chemosynthetic?
What are hydrocarbon seep communities? What
specific materials are seeping out of the seafloor here? Are the microbes
here photosynthetic or chemosynthetic?
What are subduction zone seep communities?
Can organisms live hundreds or thousands of feet below
the seafloor? What organisms do this? What is an extremophile?