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Study Guide #3

updated November 17, 2005

Subjects covered will include wind-driven waves, tsunami and storm surge, tides, coasts, shores, and beaches; characteristics of the ocean environment that are important to organisms; phytoplankton, zooplankton, and bacterioplankton.

Exam questions will be selected from the questions below. (Not all of these questions will be on the exam.)

PART I: Short answer, approximately 3 sentences, and/or a drawing or diagram.

  1. List the major groups of nekton.
  2. Briefly describe the epipelagic zone.
  3. Briefly describe the mesopelagic zone.
  4. Briefly describe the bathypelagic zone.
  5. Describe the major groups of phytoplankton and zooplankton.
  6. Describe two ways in which marine organisms control their sinking rate.
  7. What is the photic zone of the oceans and why is it important?
  8. What do marine organisms do when they osmoregulate?
  9. Define the terms pelagic and benthic.
  10. Why is it an advantage for a sessile (immobile) benthic animal to have meroplanktonic larvae?
  11. What is a major hazard of eating shellfish, such as clams and mussels, from Alaskan beaches? How can you know whether it is safe to consume these shellfish?
  12. Briefly describe one of the likely causes of increased frequency of harmful algal blooms.
  13. What are the two (2) major nutrients required for phytoplankton growth, and in what chemical form are they dissolved in the ocean?
  14. What salinity challenges must a salmon deal with over its lifecycle?
  15. Define the terms neritic and littoral.
  16. Describe at least two (2) different harmful materials (pollutants) that humans add to the coastal ocean, plus describe at least one harmful effect of each material or pollutant.
  17. What is plankton? What distinguishes phytoplankton, zooplankton and bacteroplankton from one another?
  18. What are the two (2) major groups of whales? What does each group feed on and how?
  19. What are the three (3) major groups of pinnipeds, and what distinguishes them from one another?
  20. List the seven (7) major groups of Nekton
  21. List the three (3) major attributes that have made Sharks such effective predators.
  22. What are the four (4) functions performed by the different polyp types in the Portuguese-man-of war?
  23. What distinguishes Dugongs from Manatees? How are they unique with respect to the other marine mammals?
  24. Why don't plankton sink, or do they?
  25. Why do dolphins have such large brains? Describe how the implicated system works.

  26. What challenges and benefits do organisms face in bays and estuaries compared to the rest of the oceans?

  27. What are the major groups of gelatinous zooplankton, and how do they differ?

  28. What are the three (3) major groups of fish, and how do they differ?

  29. What do sea turtles eat?
  30. What is the difference between holozooplankton and meroplankton?
  31. What is the difference between benthos, plankton, and nekton?

  32. What are the 4 major groups of phytoplankton, and how do they differ?

  33. List the five (5) major groups of marine mammals.

PART II: ESSAY QUESTIONS (approximately 10 sentence answers or less, and/or drawings if desired)

  1. Choose any three of the following planktonic plants or animals. Describe at least two adaptations for each organism, that help it survive in its ocean habitat, and how the adaptations aid survival. Adaptations may be physical (related to body or cell structure), physiological (related to biochemistry or metabolism), or behavioral.
    • Chaetoceros (a diatom with numerous spiny projections)
    • Trichodesmium (a blue-green alga that grows in large colonies)
    • Noctiluca (a biolouminescent dinoflagellate)
    • Neocalanus (a type of herbivorous copepod)
    • Thysanoessa (a type of euphausiid or krill)
    • Sagitta (a chaetognath or arrow worm)
    • Aurelia (a jellyfish, the moon jelly)
    • Salpa (a salp, a gelatinous member of the Phylum Chordata)
  2. What prompted the injection of more than 100 Million dollars in the past 5 years to study Stellar Sea lions. Briefly describe the biological problem, and list five (5) different hypotheses for why this has happened. For each hypothesis, indicate if it is supported by current research as “yes, no, or unclear”.

  3. Whales populations have been particularly impacted by human activities. Describe how they are impacted by man, and how the impact has changed over the past millennium.

  4. The salmon life-cycle has a number of unique challenges compared to other fish. Outline the salmon life cycle, and note when these challenges occur.

PART III. CREATURE FEATURE

For the following organisms:

  1. Indicate whether it is bacterioplankton, phytoplankton or zooplankton.
  2. Give at least 2 key descriptive characteristics of the organism. For example, the diatoms are characteristically golden-brown in color, have shells made of silica, often form chains, can be pillbox-shaped or oval, live in cold nutrient-rich water, etc.
  3. Indicate whether the organism is a primary producer, bacteriovore, herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore (eats both plants and animals)
  4. Describe how it obtains its food (For example, photosynthesis, engulfing particles like an ameba, filter feeding, predation, or scavenging.)
  • diatom
  • pteropod
  • arrow worm (chaetognath)
  • jellyfish (cnidarian)
  • copepod
  • comb jelly (ctenophore)
  • dinoflagellate
  • foraminiferan
  • coccolithophore
  • radiolarian
  • krill (euphausid)
  • ciliated protozoan (tintinnid)
  • cyanobacteria (blue-green algae)

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