64 Really Neat Questions – FINAL EXAM

I am proviinge the following study questions to help you prepare for the final exam. As before, PLEASE do not mistake this for a question bank from which I will build the test. don’t fall into the trap of thinking that just because a specific point isn’t discussed specifically here, it won’t be on the text. So, think about other topics that might relate to the questions I asked but are not specifically treated here. Those are the ones ripe for use as a “consider also XXXX and how it relates to this question.” Finally, the actual questions on the exam may take a different form than these ones. In a final exam in particular, I like to give you some questions that make you combine multiple concepts to consider a new one... or one that we only touched on in class – like in the DISCUSSION.

Several of you have asked for specific “tips” on taking my exams. The most important is to make sure that you answer the question I asked. This requires that you A) read the question carefully. Look for words like “compare” or “list” that will give you the “action” I am expecting. Then, you need to B) recall the information that relates to the question (I suggest that you actually write it down as bullet points). Then, C) REREAD THE QUESTION and figure out which of your bullet points actually relate to the question - and HOW. Too many people try to just take the ideas as they “pop up” and insert them into a rambling discourse. This can have two very bad consequences. First, the answer rambles and I have to work to find the answer mixed in with a bunch of non-related garbage. This can aggravate me, especially if yours is the 40th exam I looked at. Second, you can forget what the question was really asking and end up with a really great answer to a different question. I suggest you bring in some scrap paper and make some very short bullet points as you are going through this “brain dump” portion of the process. This will allow you to go back and look at each one after REREADING the question. You can cross out the ones that don’t relate – and organize the rest into a good answer. This is particularly powerful on essay question.

Keep the "carbonate budget" question on the second exam as an example. I didn't ask you to explain the budget - I wanted to know about its significance. So, as you are reading the questions, think about what i'm actually looking for. In this kind of question, you may have to use some of the details to frame your answer, but make sure that you figure out whether this information is the actualy answer to the question or just the background.

A TRICK: One other mechanical suggestion - look the whole exam over first and jot down a couple of notes on questions that might give you a problem. Then go ahead and answer other questions. Think about bulletring the essays first, so the ideas can "ferment" while you're tackling the earlier part of the exam. Too many people pour over the short-answer questions and end up leaving too little time for the essays. On the shorter ones, you will either know it or you won’t.... and this will be quickly obvious.

So, when you study, focus on the concepts – think about the details as either 1) building blocks to the larger arguments, or 2) as support for them. The details can be useful, but things like definitions and names sre usually important only as phrases that allow you to refer to a complex concept with a catchy name. Knowing the term "Intermediate Disturbace Hyupothesis" isn't necessary and I'd never ask you to fill in a blank such as, "Connell's theory of rain-forest development was called (fill-in-the-blank)", However, if you remeber the name of the theory, you can save all the space you'd have to fill with a generic description.

And now.... the questions:

1. How do biologists and geologists view reefs differently? Why might these differences arise and how do they affect the way we think about reefs under natural and anthropogenically changed scenarios?
2. What are the main differences between fringing and barrier reefs from the standpoint of a) their origins and b) their susceptibility to different forms of environmental stress?
3. How do factors related to efficient nutrient and carbon cycling within the coral-reef ecosystem contribute to both the success of coral reefs and their susceptibility to decline? How does this relate to identifying problems and fixing them?
4. What are the main differences between autotrophs and heterotrophs? How does this tie into top-down versus bottom-up controls of coral reefs and possible reef remediation?
5. What are the main functions that a coral must perform? How are they related to the world around them and to one another? How have these changed over time?
6. What are "guilds" and how do they help us think about modern reefs? How about for ancient ones?
7. What factors are most responsible for a) where a particular type of reef will occur and b) what an individual reef might look like?
8. Why are coral reefs zoned? What major factors are involved? How do they interact?
9. If so much sediment is produced by bioerosion - and so much of that is moved around - why are ancient reefs still zoned?
10. Why can corals that have zooxanthellae produce skeleton so much faster then their non-zooxanthellate kin? Think beyond just zoox "providing food".
11. How has the importance of this changed over geologic time? Why has it changed? What has the result been?
12. Why does sea level go up and down? What factors generally control how often these occur? How does this relate to reef development with and without anthropogenic stress?
13. What proxies do we have for past sea-level and temperature change? How can we use these to discuss recent reef changes?
14. What are the main effects of sediments and sedimentation on coral reefs? How have humans changed these? What other factors are associated with sedimentation that can increase negative impacts? How do these relate to recent reef decline and possible strategies to mitigate it?
15. What is the role of nutrient in coral reefs? Where are most of the nutrients derived from in a “healthy” coral reef? What is an “unhealthy” nutrient supply in coral reefs? How does this relate to recent reef decline?
16. Discuss the relative impacts of adding nutrients versus eliminating grazers. How does this relate to decisions about coral-reef remediation?
17. Describe the life cycle of a coral and what determines successful coral recruitment. What factors will determine the success of a coral larva? How do reproductive strategies play into all of this.... and what are the pro’s and cons of the various ways corals make more corals?
18. What can annual growth bands (in X-ray) tell us about a coral and the reef on which it grew?
19. How do hurricanes form? What determines where a storm will occur and how severe it will be?
20. Why do we have the "Trade Winds"? Why are they important?
21. How do waves form? Why do they move out ahead of the storm itself? How does this relate to damage caused by a hurricane as it approaches - or as it passes closely by?
22. What factors will determine the kinds and severity of damage to coral reefs and the organisms that inhabit them.
23. What is the carbonate budget? How do we construct one?
24. What does the budget tell us about moderns reefs? How can we use it to understand reefs deeper in geologic time?
23. How do storms fit into the carbonate budget? Consider both good and bad effects.
24. Describe the change in the shallow reef community around the Caribbean and the controls exerted by storms and fair-weather waves. What are the controlling factors? How does this relate to reef types across the region?
25. Why are there so few corals on the SE side of Easter Island? How does this differ from most of the reefs we discussed?
26. Why would we expect low coral abundance and diversity on Easter Island?
27. What does the fact that corals bleached on Easter Island tell us about bleaching elsewhere?
28. What is the difference between a bioherm and a biostrome? How would we tell in an outcrop from far away? From closer up? Why worry about this?
29. How do we use modern reefs to understand their fossil counterparts? What are the problems we have to keep in mind? How do we deal with them?
30 . What advantage do geologists have over biologists when understanding biological change? Vice versa?
31. Why is it important to differentiate between “coral growth” and “reef building”?
32. What do our studies of Holocene reefs tell us about reefs and their ability to keep up with rising sea level? How can we us this information to intellgently discuss possible future problems in the face of global warming.
33. What are the large-scale factors that have contributed to the changing biological seascape over geologic time? How have they caused changes in reefs (give specific examples if possible)? How does this all relate to our concerns of present and future reef decline?
31. What is an extinction? A radiation? What factors can be responsible? How does this relate to recent reef decline?
32. “The present is the key to the past”. How does this work? What problems and pitfalls exist? What is the value of this approach?
33. “The past is the key to the present”? How does this work? What problems and pitfalls exist? What is the value of this approach?
34. How does Fagerstrom's :guild" approach fit into all of this?
35. Coral abundance and diversity in the Buck Island cores appears to be more similar to that associated with the pre-White Band Disease community than anything that came after. What conclusions might one draw from this? How does this relate to the occurrence of gaps in the Caribbean Acropora record? How do we put all of this into the context of recent reef decline and identifying possible solutions?
36. How do the spatial and temporal scale at which we view reefs affect how "stable" or "unstable" those reefs might appear?
37. As the rate of sea level rises, what will happen to reefs? What might we look for in a road cut that exposes a fossil reef to tell whether it was keeping up or not? There are more than one answers to this.
38. What had been the relationship between grazers and constructors through geologic time? What has this told us about reef evolution?
39. What might a fossil reef without A. palmata tell us? How does this relate to recent losses of the species on Caribbean reefs?
40. Why did so many reefs that are presently at sea level “start” up between 8,000 and 6,000 years ago?
41. What evidence do we have for recent coral-reef decline? How can we tell what sort of thing is causing problems in a specific place?
42. Compare and contrast the kinds of changes (and rates) we were seeing in reefs in the 1980s versus what we are seeing now. What factors have contributed to decline then and now? How might these determine our approaches to reef remediation?
43. Describe the pathways of change in a top-down versus bottom-up disturbance? How do these change the way we have to think about remediation in a particular reef?
44. What is the difference between acute and chronic stress?
45. What does Jackson mean when he refers to a “shifting baseline”?
46. Compare and contrast Aronson/Precht’s versus Pandolfi/Jackson’s approach to reef decline and, therefore, remediation.
47. Why not just protect "biodioversity hotspots"?
48 . What is point-source versus a non-point source pollution? Give an example and a remediation method associated with it?
49 . What are "side-in" stresses? How do they complicate remediation?
50. Summarize Hughes’ documentation of reef decline in Jamaica. What factors were responsible?
51. What are coral diseases? Is this a bottom-up, top-down or "other" stress? How do they relate to global factors?
52. What are the differences in the main driving mechanisms of El Niño/La Niña circulation versus the Ocean Conveyor Belt?
53. If the water off Peru is colder than the water above, why does it upwell? What is the result. How do El Niño and La Niña affect this?
54. How does the OCB modulate glaciation/deglaciation in a natural world? Think more about the large-scale circulation and what is happening up around Iceland.
55. How could we possibly turn it off - or retard it starting back up?
56. Why are we worried about this?
57. Looking at it from the oppoisite direction, what drives the OCB generally? More specifically, why does it get stronger or weaker as climate changes? Why might we be concerned about it slowing down or "shutting off"?
58. What is “endimicity”? How does it relate to the strategy of preserving “diversity hoptspots”? Why is knowing something about currents important here?
59. Compare the ideas behind “no take zones”, marine protected areas that limit access, and regulations similar to Coastal Zone Management. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each?
60. Does size matter in MPA’s? Why or why not? How about spacing?
61.How would a top-down versus a bottom-up approach to natural area management relate to your strategies? How does recent warming and disease complicate this?