Ecological Risk Assessment & Biodiversity Flashcards
7 cards from real CES practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Ecological Risk Assessment & Biodiversity flashcards as text
In ERA, 'lines of evidence' (LOE) are used to:
Answer: Integrate multiple data types to characterize risk more robustly
Weight-of-evidence approaches use multiple lines of evidence (chemical, toxicological, ecological) to reach more defensible risk characterization conclusions.
The 'extinction debt' concept in conservation biology describes:
Answer: Future species extinctions that are inevitable due to past habitat loss
Extinction debt refers to species that are committed to future extinction because of past habitat destruction but have not yet gone extinct.
Which statistical distribution is most commonly used to fit species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) for deriving water quality criteria?
Answer: Log-normal or log-logistic distribution
Log-normal and log-logistic distributions are most frequently used in SSD modeling because species sensitivity data are typically right-skewed on a linear scale.
A bioassessment using the Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) compares sampled communities to:
Answer: Reference communities from least-disturbed sites in the same region
The IBI benchmarks observed biological conditions against reference sites representing minimal human disturbance in the same ecoregion.
Which of the following is NOT a component of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) three main objectives?
Answer: Prevention of invasive alien species introductions
The CBD's three core objectives are conservation, sustainable use, and equitable benefit-sharing from genetic resources — invasive species prevention is a related but separate obligation.
In a Tier 1 ERA screening, a hazard quotient (HQ) > 1.0 indicates:
Answer: The exposure estimate exceeds the effects benchmark, warranting further evaluation
HQ > 1.0 signals that estimated exposure exceeds the protective benchmark and triggers higher-tier assessment, but does not confirm actual harm.
The Allee effect in population ecology describes a situation where:
Answer: Per capita growth rate decreases at very low population densities
The Allee effect occurs when per capita fitness decreases at low population sizes due to factors like difficulty finding mates or reduced cooperative behaviors.