Nature Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. Which combination of traits distinguishes mammals from other major vertebrate groups?
Four limbs and eggs with protective coverings
A backbone and the ability to breathe oxygen
Hair or fur and milk production by mammary glands
Warm blood and the ability to care for offspring
2. Fertilizer washes into a lake, triggering rapid algae growth. Many fish later die. What is the most likely explanation?
The algae make the lake water too clear for fish to hide.
Decomposition of dead algae uses up dissolved oxygen needed by fish.
The algae prevent all evaporation and sharply raise the water level.
The fertilizer causes fish to lose the ability to use their gills immediately.
3. In most ecosystems, what is the primary role of green plants?
They convert light energy into stored chemical energy.
They turn atmospheric nitrogen directly into oxygen.
They obtain energy by decomposing dead organisms.
They recycle heat released by animals into nutrients.
4. Through which process do plants directly remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere?
Cellular respiration
Decomposition
Photosynthesis
Evaporation
5. Which water-cycle process forms tiny liquid droplets when water vapor cools?
Evaporation
Condensation
Transpiration
Infiltration
6. A scientist finds mouse bones in owl pellets collected beneath a nest. What can the scientist most reasonably infer?
Mice are part of the owls' food supply in that area.
The mice and owls compete for the same food.
The owls use mouse bones to construct their nest.
The mice digest food in the same way as owls.
7. A non-native plant spreads rapidly after arriving in a new habitat. Which finding would best explain why it is disrupting the local plant community?
It produces flowers at the same time as a native species.
Its seeds are carried short distances by local winds.
It grows only in places where native plants cannot survive.
It has few local predators and outcompetes native plants for light and space.
8. After bare volcanic rock is exposed, lichens begin growing on it. Why can lichens help later plants establish there?
They prevent all water from leaving the rock surface.
They immediately create deep soil by fixing large amounts of carbon dioxide.
They help weather the rock and contribute material to early soil.
They transform the volcanic rock directly into plant roots.
9. A snowshoe hare has a white winter coat, but reduced snowfall leaves the ground brown. What is the most direct consequence for the hare?
Its white fur produces less body heat.
Predators may detect it more easily against the darker background.
It can no longer digest the plants available in winter.
Its tracks become impossible for other hares to recognize.
10. What vital ecosystem function is performed by many fungi and bacteria?
Creating sunlight for plants
Preventing all soil erosion
Converting consumers into producers
Breaking down dead matter and returning nutrients to the environment
11. Which interaction is the clearest example of mutualism?
A tick feeds on the blood of a deer.
A fox captures and eats a mouse.
Two hawks compete for the same nesting site.
A bee gains nectar while carrying pollen between flowers.
12. An oceanic tectonic plate moves beneath a continental plate. Which features are most likely to develop near the boundary?
A deep ocean trench and a chain of volcanic mountains
A mid-ocean ridge and a new rift valley on the continent
A broad river delta and sand dunes
A coral atoll and a wide, stable plain
13. During a drought, mostly hard seeds remain on an island. Birds with deeper beaks open them more successfully and produce more offspring. If this continues for generations, what is the most likely result?
Deeper beaks will become more common through natural selection.
Every bird will deepen its beak during its own lifetime.
The hard seeds will cause birds to stop inheriting beak traits.
All variation in beak shape will disappear after one generation.
14. Two forest plots each contain ten tree species. In Plot A, individuals are spread fairly evenly among the species. In Plot B, almost every tree belongs to one species. What can be concluded?
Plot B has greater species richness because one species is abundant.
Plot A has fewer ecological interactions because its trees are evenly distributed.
Both plots have identical biodiversity in every respect because they contain ten species.
Plot A has greater species evenness, an important component of biodiversity.
15. Why does each of Earth's hemispheres experience seasons?
Earth moves much closer to and farther from the Sun each year.
Earth's tilted axis changes the angle and duration of sunlight during its orbit.
The Sun produces substantially different amounts of heat each season.
Ocean tides periodically shift warm water between the hemispheres.
16. Foxes prey on rabbits in a grassland. If the fox population suddenly declines while other conditions remain similar, what is most likely to happen first?
The grass population increases because more rabbits feed on it.
The rabbits immediately evolve into a new species.
The rabbit population increases because predation pressure is reduced.
The rabbits switch from consumers to producers.