Regents Living Environment Test Preparation Practice

    Succession Change Of Ecosystems Over Time

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    Base your answers to questions 11 on the graph below and on your knowledge of biology. The graph shows the masses of different types of plants found in an area of the Adirondack Mountains after a forest fire occurred.

    ecology, succession, change of ecosystems over time fig: lenv62016-examw_g9.png

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    Base your answers to questions 13 on the information below and on your knowledge of biology.

    Nature Will Have to Clean Up Hawaii Molasses Leak That Killed Thousands of Fish

    A massive spill of thick molasses has turned Honolulu Harbor into a watery wasteland where thousands of fish have been suffocated – a disaster that officials say Mother Nature will have to clean up.

    “There’s nothing alive there at all,” diver Roger White told NBC affiliate KHNL after making a seven-minute video of dead sea life blanketing the bottom of the harbor.…

    …“Unlike with an oil spill, it’s a sugar product so it will dissipate on its own,” Matson spokesman Jeff Hull told NBC News on Thursday. “There’s not an active cleanup.”

    “The molasses is not toxic but it’s heavier than water so it’s spreading around on the sea floor, displacing the oxygen-rich water down there, and the fish are suffocating,” said Keith Korsmeyer, a professor of biology at Hawaii Pacific University.

    The die-off also could lure predators like sharks, barracuda and eels to the harbor and neighboring Keehi Lagoon, experts warned.…

    …Korsmeyer said marine life would probably repopulate the harbor, after the low- oxygen water moves out, but that could take months or even years.…

    Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/nature-will-have-clean-

    hawaii-molasses-leak-killed-thousands-fish-f8C11137030

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    Base your answers to questions 14 on the information and data table below and on your knowledge of biology.

    The data table summarizes the changes that occurred to farmland in the years immediately following its abandonment. The land is located in a very stable ecosystem. It was abandoned after years of overuse and weathering, which resulted in the depletion of soil nutrients.

    ecology, organization of ecosystems  fig: lenv62015-examw_g28.png

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    Base your answers to question 15-16 on the diagram below and on your knowledge of biology. The diagram indicates a change in an ecosystem.

    ecology, succession, change of ecosystems over time, ecology, stability of ecosystems, alteration and recovery of ecosystem fig: lenv62018-examw_g23.png

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