Q 01/05

Which German scientist coined the term 'ecology' (Ökologie) in 1866?

A) Ernst Haeckel

B) Charles Darwin

C) Alexander von Humboldt

D) Gregor Mendel

Answer · why

A) Ernst Haeckel

He introduced it in his sprawling Generelle Morphologie der Organismen, the same book in which he pushed Darwin's ideas onto German readers.

Q 02/05

Haeckel's illustrated book Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature) influenced which artistic movement?

A) Bauhaus

B) Art Nouveau

C) Cubism

D) Art Deco

Answer · why

B) Art Nouveau

The book collects over 100 detailed, multi-colour plates of radiolarians, jellyfish and other sea creatures, and its flowing forms turned up in archit...

Q 03/05

The word 'ecosystem' first appeared in print in 1935 in a publication by which British ecologist?

A) Charles Elton

B) Julian Huxley

C) Arthur Tansley

D) Frederic Clements

Answer · why

C) Arthur Tansley

He wanted a word that stressed the transfer of materials between organisms and their physical surroundings, not just the organisms themselves.

Q 04/05

Who actually came up with the word 'ecosystem', at the request of the ecologist who published it?

A) Julian Huxley

B) Charles Elton

C) G. Evelyn Hutchinson

D) Arthur Roy Clapham

Answer · why

D) Arthur Roy Clapham

Clapham was a young Oxford botanist at the time; his colleague got the credit because he was the one who published and championed the concept.

Q 05/05

Which American ecologist wrote the 1953 textbook Fundamentals of Ecology with his brother?

A) Raymond Lindeman

B) G. Evelyn Hutchinson

C) Robert MacArthur

D) Eugene Odum

Answer · why

D) Eugene Odum

The Odum brothers took a systems approach to whole ecosystems, and the book also fixed the modern meaning of a population's environmental ceiling.