Questions and Answers of Botany An Introduction To Plant Biology

A prey population with a curved zero growth isocline is important because the zero growth isocline of the predator might intersect it to either the right or the left of the maximum value. One
What is the paradox of enrichment? How are zero growth isoclines involved in this? Give an example of this in real life.
Fixed effort harvesting and fixed quota harvesting are two very different approaches to fishing, hunting, and timber harvest. Describe each and describe how each affects the population being
The optimal diet model makes four predictions; list all four.
What is the R* of a resource being used by a species? When two species, N1 and N2, compete for the same resource, how do their respective R1* and R2* affect the outcome?
Define mutualism. Give two examples of mutualistic relationships.
Once a mutualistic relationship evolves between two species, will natural selection and co-evolution cause the two species to become continuously more dependent on each other? Or is it possible for
Describe primary succession. Do you think it may have been important in the last 12,000 years as ice sheets and glaciers retreated?
Animals migrate through the movement of whole animals (walking, flying). How do plants move? Describe several mechanisms.
The model of metapopulations postulates that some patches that are suitable for a species will not be occupied by the species. Does that mean that the patch is not really suitable after all? Does it
The model of metapopulations also postulates that many species occupy their patches only temporarily, that sooner or later they will be eliminated by competition or some other factor. If this is
In many cases, it is beneficial to have migration corridors connecting various patches of a metapopulation. Do you think it would be suitable to designate the shoulders of a busy highway as a
What is assisted dispersal? Why might it be more important now than it has been in the past? Why do some people object to it?
Most studies of food webs do not bother with examining most of the species or even most of the organisms in the actual web. Why? How reliable are such studies? Are all organisms and all
Earth’s land surface is covered by biomes, extensive groupings of many ________________. Are these characterized by distinctive aspects of both plants and animals or by just one of the two?
Biomes vary from extremely simple to more complex. Name a simple biome. Name two complex ones. Biome complexity is most strongly influenced by two abiotic factors: ____________________ and
Why are the Florida Keys desert islands? Why are the Hawaiian Islands and Puerto Rico not desert islands?
Why does the west coast of the United States and Canada receive so much more rain than the central plains? What is the source of rain that prevents the central plains from being a complete
What is the latitude where you live? Which coast is closer to your location? Does it influence your climate significantly?
What is the precipitation pattern in your area—mostly in summer or winter? What is typically the longest time between rains—10 days, a month? Does this dry period occur in summer or winter?
Are the soils in your area thin, rocky, and immature or thick and rich?
In the late Paleozoic Era, at about the time life was beginning to move onto land, all of the continents drifted together. What is the name we use for that supercontinent? What is the name for the
The northwestern United States is a temperate rain forest biome, and the western side of the Olympic Mountains often receives more than ___________________ cm of rain per year. There are 2.5 cm in
The northeastern United States is dominated by temperate deciduous forests. What does “temperate” mean? What is a “deciduous forest”? Describe the climate that produces the temperate
The entire central plains of North America is—or more accurately, was —grassland, often referred to as prairie. Why does the sentence say “was”? What has happened to the grassland of the
What is your image of a desert—dry and lifeless? Look at Figure 27-21 of a desert in Arizona. Do you think this area looks like this all year long?Figure 27-21 (A) (B)
Chaparral in California is a famous shrubland. What is a frequent disturbance in chaparral, one that is in the news every year? How are native chaparral plants adapted to this disturbance?
What is the boreal coniferous forest? Where is it located? The boreal forest is almost exclusively coniferous, whereas just to the south are the temperate deciduous forests. Why is the more northern
There is no huge, extensive austral coniferous forest. Why not (Look at Figure 27-3; is there any land at the corresponding latitude in the Southern Hemisphere)?Figure 27-3 Arctic circle Tropic of
Of the biomes discussed in this chapter, in which do you live? What are the dominant plants in your biome? What are the dominant animals other than humans? What are the most significant causes of
Name all of the state and national parks or wilderness areas located within one day’s drive of your home. How many of these have you visited? Of all the biomes mentioned, how many have you traveled
The lycophytes once contained many species of large trees that formed extensive forests. Briefly describe plants of Lepidodendron and Sigillaria. Also describe their wood.
The reconstruction of Asteroxylon in Figure 21-10 shows thin, leaf-like flaps of tissue on the plant’s surface. What are these called? Did they ever have stomata in any of the zosterophyllophytes?
What are microphylls? Are they related to the enations of Asteroxylon?
What are the zosterophyllophytes? How did they differ from rhyniophytes? Why do we think they are related to lycophytes but not to ferns and seed plants?
There are two alternative hypotheses about the life cycle of the early vascular plants, the transformation hypothesis and the interpolation hypothesis. If Rhynia and Sciadophyton are the two
Rocks that contain fossils of Rhynia also often contain fossils of Sciadophyton. We know that Rhynia was a sporophyte and that Sciadophyton was a gametophyte. Because they grew together, we suspect
The vascular bundles of flowering plants surround a pith, but the earliest vascular plants had no pith. A vascular system with a solid mass of xylem with no pith is called a _________________. A
In the vascular bundles of flowering plants, protoxylem is closest to the center of the stem, and metaxylem is farther out. Is this an endarch or an exarch arrangement? Seed plants always have just
If Rhynia or its contemporaries were the ancestors to the ferns, how did the gametophytes and sporophytes change during evolution?
Draw a plant of Rhynia. Be certain to include the reproductive parts. Now assume that it has a life cycle with an alternation of isomorphicgenerations and draw a complete life cycle.
The earliest fossils that definitely were vascular land plants belong to _________________, a genus of extinct plants. They branched _______________, both branches being of equal size and vigor.
Briefly describe eusporangia and leptosporangia. Which is the type that occurs in all other vascular plants? Which is the type that occurs in most ferns?
A very important feature of ferns is shown in Figure 21-29: Their shoot xylem is not solid as it was in the rhyniophytes. In the evolution of ferns and seed plants, there was the evolution of pith. A
When fern spores germinate, they grow into small, simple heart-shaped or ribbon-shaped ______________ with unicellular _________________ on the lower surface but with no vascular tissue and no
You may have noticed that the undersides (but never the upper sides) of fern leaves have brown dots or brown streaks or brown patches. The brown dots are called _________________ (singular,
What are the two common names of equisetums? What is the appearance of the plants? Their approximate height? Look at Figures 21-21 and 21-24. Equisetums have strobili (in plant identification books,
Name two genera of ferns that are found in deserts. Name two that grow floating on water. One that lives underwater. There are ferns called “tree ferns.” Do tree ferns have woody trunks with
Ferns first appeared in the Devonian Period. Look at the inside of the back cover. How long ago was the Devonian Period? Unlike all the groups mentioned so far in this chapter, most of this group is
Describe the trimerophytes. From what group did they evolve, and what lines of evolution did they produce? Even though all rhyniophytes and trimerophytes are now extinct, would you consider them
Describe the evolution of megaphylls. What are telomes?
Trimerophytes were plants that probably evolved from rhyniophytes but with more derived features. In one feature, certain stems grow longer than others, and thus, rather than having dichotomous
Name two genera of living lycophytes. What are their common names? About how big do they get? Are they leafy or do they have naked stems? In a plant identification book, they would probably be listed
The following organisms are often called mosses, but they are not actually closely related to mosses at all. What groups of plants do they actually belong to?a. Spanish mossb. Club mossesc. Slimy,
What are the three groups of nonvascular plants? How would you determine whether an unknown specimen is a vascular plant?
The nonvascular plants of this chapter are believed to be true plants, just as ferns, conifers, and flowering plants are true plants; however, there are two tissues that the nonvascular plants do not
Some vascular plants produce seeds; others do not. Vascular plants that do not produce seeds are known as ____________________, whereas vascular plants that do produce seeds are known as
What are some of the modifications necessary if an alga is to become evolutionarily adapted to living on land? Is a single modification sufficient, or are several necessary?
Why would it be necessary for an evolutionary line to develop stomata and guard cells before it developed an extremely impervious cuticle? Why must vascular tissues precede the evolution of roots and
If the leptoids of mosses were found to contain a protein whose gene had the same nucleotide sequence as the gene that codes for P-protein, would that be significant evidence for either the homology
You will see sporophytes only if you examine mosses closely. They look like green or brown “_____________” standing up on the green gametophyte, but sporophytes are (circle one: present almost
Draw a single moss plant, similar to the one in Figure 20-10. Be certain to show the gametophyte and the sporophyte. Now draw one without the sporophyte, showing only the gametophyte. The sporophytes
Do mosses have an alternation of isomorphic or heteromorphic generations? That is, can you easily tell a moss gametophyte from a moss sporophyte? When we look at leafy green moss plants, what are we
The leafy, green moss plants that are so familiar are gametophytes, haploid plants. This is very different from flowering plants and other seed plants. Does a leafy green moss plant grow from a spore
Draw and label the life cycle of a moss; be certain to show gametangia and sporangia. Which parts are haploid and which are diploid? Where and when does meiosis occur? Plasmogamy? Karyogamy?
In the majority of mosses, which lack hydroids and leptoids, water is conducted along the _____________ of the plant by _____________ action.
The leafy, green moss plants, being gametophytes, have gametangia, structures that produce gametes. What is the name of the gametangium that produces sperm cells? The gametangium that produces egg
The sporophyte of a moss usually has a stalk called a ____________ and a simple apical sporangium called a ____________.
The liverwort Marchantia is one of the largest and most common. There is a good chance that you will find it if you search carefully in moist places (you may have to search many places). Is it a
Many people often think of mosses as plants adapted to rainy areas, areas that are usually wet. Are any mosses adapted to deserts? Can some mosses lose much of their water—the way a seed does
Unlike Marchantia, some liverworts are as simple as a true plant can possibly get. Describe the body of Sphaerocarpos texanus. If you were shown one of these plants, how would you be certain it was
What are some of the ways in which liverworts differ from mosses? How do hornworts differ from both? Do the three have similar life cycles?
What are the “horns” of hornworts? What do they produce? They have a meristem. Where is it located?
An important consideration in the evolution of any organism is gene flow. What are some of the mechanisms by which genes move through the habitat in nonvascular plants? In a dense, cool forest, how
What is the name of the science of giving things names?
One of the critical goals of biological nomenclature is to provide each species with a ______________ name. After the discovery of evolution by natural selection, taxonomists realized that the most
Imagine that two completely unrelated species in very different families were accidentally given the same name. What kind of confusion would this cause? What if both were separately the subject of
At the end of the 19th century, taxonomists adopted the goal of developing a natural system of classification. In a natural system, which kinds of organisms are classified together?
Originally, the main task of taxonomists was to discover new species and give them unique names. In a natural system of classification, they must also figure out the evolutionary relationships of the
Imagine trying to identify plants in your region by using a roadside flower guide. This type of a classification system is not a natural system. Instead, it is an ______________ classification system.
For fossils, we often must use a mix of artificial and natural classification. What is a form genus? If you found a specimen of fossil wood—but only wood, with no leaves or cones or bark—and it
Theophrastus is often called the father of botany. When did he live? He had two very famous teachers. Who were they?
What is the book Materia Medica? Who wrote it and when? What kind of information does it contain?
In the 14th and 15th centuries, explorers brought to Europe information and specimens from Africa, the Americas and Asia, and this led to the realization that Pliny and other ancient Greek and Roman
Linnaeus is well known for inventing the binomial system of nomenclature. In this system, each species has a ______________ name and a ______________ name.
Study Table 18-1 and then, without looking at it, write all of the categories in order. Then write all the group names for Texas bluebonnet and for spider lily. Another bluebonnet, in the same genus
Of all taxonomic categories, only species has an objective definition. What is it?
Closely related species are grouped together into _____________ (singular, _____________). By the way, what is the singular of “species”?
Sometimes two species appear similar because of convergent evolution not because they are closely related. Usually, it is safe to assume that if two plants do not resemble each other, they are not
A critical concern of systematics is that the genera are __________________, that all the species included in the genus are related to each other by a common ancestor, and that (circle one: all,
In an unnatural, ________________ group, members have evolved from different ancestors and may resemble each other only as a result of convergent evolution.
Give definitions for synapomorphy, symplesiomorphy, and homoplasy.
Think about the apples we eat. They are in the genus Malus which is a member of the rose family, Rosaceae, along with roses, peaches, cherries, and even strawberries plus many other familiar plants.
Have you tried using the Plants and People Box 18-4 to key out plants? Couplet 6 is used to distinguish between beets and turnips and relies on a character that is very easy to assess. What character
What are type specimens? Why are they important?
What is a monograph?
All organisms are classified into three domains. Name the three and describe the organisms that are classified in each.
Reproductive structures are the critical factors in distinguishing algae from true plants of kingdom Plantae. What is one fundamental difference between reproductive structures in these two groups?
Which group of algae appears to be most closely related to the ancestors of true plants? Which features appear to be homologous?
Describe the endosymbiont theory of plastid origin. How many times might chloroplasts have arisen?

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