Of Earth's total number of species, why are the fewest in the marine pelagic realm?
a) There is more area on land for different species.
b) Uniform conditions in the pelagic realm make fewer specialized environments for organism adaptation, evolution and radiation into different species.
c) Organisms need a hard substrate (either land or sea bottom) in order to evolve into different species.
d) Evolution of differing species is triggered by extinction, but extinction is rare in the pelagic environment.
e) The pelagic realm contains the photic zone, and solar radiation in the photic zone suppresses the number of new species that evolve.
Question 2
You are on a research cruise, and you leave Japan, heading east. At about 1500 kilometers east of Japan, you encounter a large volcanic plateau (Shatsky Rise) that is covered with sediments.
You lower a piston core to sample the sediments, and the wire indicator says 2500 meters of water depth. What kind of sediment will the core likely contain? a) Lithogenous
b) Hydrogenous
c) Abyssal clays
d) Carbonate ooze
e) Siliceous ooze
Difficulties in applying the morphological species concept
Blue whale skeleton, outside the Long Marine Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Cruz
Andy Warhol, San Francisco Silverspot, from the series Endangered Species
A taxonomy of the human species.
Idealized Tidal Bulges on Earth
Gravitational Potential Energy for the Earth problem