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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How do scientists relate data from samples and isolates to larger areas?
(a) Prediction.
(b) Interpolation.
(c) Speculation.
(d) Extrapolation.

2. What is Lovejoy's term for the ecological crisis?
(a) Faunal collapse.
(b) Relaxation to equilibrium.
(c) Catastrophic deterioration.
(d) Ecosystem decay.

3. Where is Krakatau?
(a) Italy.
(b) Japan.
(c) Tunisia.
(d) Malay Archipelago.

4. When does a species' dispersal ability become important, according to Quammen?
(a) When a species is forced to find new food sources.
(b) When the species is isolated by mountain ranges or lakes.
(c) When an island loses all its life after a catastrophic event.
(d) When a species is threatened by new predators.

5. What is Quammen really describing as he imagines the hacked up rug?
(a) Fragmented ecosystems.
(b) The spread of pathogens.
(c) Loss of communication from one region to the next.
(d) Loss of environment to development.

Short Answer Questions

1. How did humans hurt the dodo population directly?

2. What did Frank Preston say made up the majority of species in any ecosystem?

3. What advice did Darwin receive from his friends, with regard to Wallace's work?

4. What ecosystem does Wallace distinguish from ecosystems that developed in isolation?

5. Where did Quammen go to study temrecs?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was the understanding about the variety of life forms before the theory of evolution came along?

2. What other Mauritius species does Quammen describe?

3. When did the field of island biogeography begin?

4. List the attributes that govern the survivability of individual species in island ecosystems.

5. Who is Frank Preston, and what was his contribution to the discussion of island size and species count?

6. Why are islands important in ecosystem studies, in Quammen's opinion?

7. What is dispersal ability and why is it important?

8. What practical assertion does Quammen say Frank Preston made based on his findings?

9. What are the different terms Quammen describes for how people have accounted for the degradation of ecosystems?

10. Describe Quammen's tone in the first chapter.

(see the answer keys)

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