Self-quiz

After reading the materials on the website, you should be able to answer these questions.

1) What is an invasive species?  What are some of the negative ecological consequences of invasive species?

2) Name three factors that might affect the number of invasive plants you find in a wildlife refuge.  For each factor, explain why that factor might influence the number of invasive species.

3) Why does the number of invasive plant species in a refuge provide only a partial assessment of the extent to which that reserve has been invaded?

4) What is meant by habitat heterogeneity?  How might habitat heterogeneity affect the richness of invasive species in an area? 

5) How will we be measuring habitat heterogeneity, and what are the limitations of our approach?

6) What is the argument for weighting the data from the various refuges?  Isn’t weighting results unfair – i.e. shouldn’t we just count all refuges equally?

7) Why is performing a separate analysis of the relationship between each explanatory variable and invasive richness not sufficient for understanding our data?

8) Why do we plan to have multiple students compile data for each refuge?  Isn’t this a waste of effort?

9) Do plant invasions necessarily lead to the extinction of native species?  Why or why not?

10) What do you think are the principal limitations of our research project?