51. Community Ecology

Which statement is an example of commensalism?

Under which of the following circumstances would interspecific competition be most obvious?

The niche of an animal is __________.

When goats were introduced to an island off the California coast, the goats inhabited the same areas and ate the same plants as the native deer. The deer population dwindled and finally disappeared. This is an example of __________.

Flounder is a type of fish that looks like the seafloor. This is an example of __________.

The flower fly resembles a honeybee, but the flower fly has no stinger. This is an example of what natural phenomenon?

The poison-arrow frogs Dendrobates of tropical America are all brightly colored and have very similar patterns. Although each species is distasteful to predators and all possess toxic skin secretions, some of the species live quite separately from the others. The adaptive relationship among these species is best termed __________.

Certain species of acacia trees in Central and South America have hollow thorns that house stinging ants, which attack anything that touches the tree. The ants feed on nutrients produced by the acacias. This is an example of __________.

What is the key difference between a dominant species and a keystone species?

A species of malaria-carrying mosquito lives in a forest in which two species of monkeys, A and B, coexist. Species A is immune to malaria, but species B is not. The malaria-carrying mosquito is the chief food for a particular kind of bird in the forest. If all these birds were suddenly eliminated by hunters, which of the following would be an immediately observable consequence?