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Self-Test for Ecosystem Services Module

Click on the appropriate response to each question below. After you've completed the quiz, you can calculate your score and compare your answers to the correct answers by clicking on the calculate score button that follows the quiz.

1. The services flowing from natural ecosystems are usually assigned dollar values in our "market-based" economic system

2. Examples of ecosystem services include:

3. Technological advances have heightened our awareness of the value of natural goods and services

4. One of the commercially valued ecosystem goods is the annual world fish catch and recreational sport fishery, which together, total approximately

5. Less than 5% of the world's energy consumption is supplied by fuelwood and other plant material

6. The availability of most natural products (i.e. goods) is in decline due to:

7. Biological diversity, or biodiversity, refers to the variety of life forms at all levels or organization, and is conveniently often quantified in terms of number of species.

8. In the long run, we can rely on preservation efforts such as zoological breeding programs, botanical gardens and legally protected reserves, to sustain our earth's biodiversity

9. Extractions from the world's genetic library are fueling the biotechnology industry, accounting for:

10. The commercial value of pharmaceuticals used in traditional medicine exceeds $40 billion/year, with 85% derived from plants

11. Biological life plays an important role in regulating the earth's climate by:

12. Transpiration (release of water vapor from the leaves) of plants in the morning causes thunderstorms in the afternoon, demonstrating an ecosystem's ability to exert direct physical influence on local weather.

13. Today, soil degradation induced by human activities afflicts nearly ______% of the earth's vegetated surface.

14. Soil microorganisms are key to decomposition of wastes such as plastics

15. The vast majority of flowering plants require animal pollination for successful reproduction

16. Although the European honeybee is threatened, the diversity of natural pollinators is increasing, due to climatic warming.

17. As a strategy for fighting crop pests, chemical pesticides have many drawbacks, except:

18. Foremost among the immediate threats to ecosystem services are:

19. Threats to ecosystem services are thought to be driven by two underlying forces associated with the unsustainable growth of the human enterprise: population size in per capita consumption and ___________:

20. The Biosphere 2 experiment attempting to duplicate the earth's environment failed in large part due to unexpected problems with the systems'__________:

 
 

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