Ecosystems and Biodiversity Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Only statement 1 is correct, so the answer is 1 only.

The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing was adopted in October 2010 at the tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, and entered into force in 2014. Its aim is access to genetic resources and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits from their use.

Statement 2 has the order reversed. India's National Biodiversity Authority was established in 2003 under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, which implemented the Convention on Biological Diversity, years before the Nagoya Protocol existed.

Answer: C

Three pairs are correctly matched: Only three pairs.

Bandipur is in Karnataka, Bandhavgarh in Madhya Pradesh, and Sathyamangalam in Tamil Nadu, the meeting point of the Western and Eastern Ghats.

The pair that is wrong is Satpura: the Satpura Tiger Reserve, including Pachmarhi, is in Madhya Pradesh, not Maharashtra. The Satpura range does run into Maharashtra, which is the likely trap.

Answer: C

The correct code is A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1.

• Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve: the lion-tailed macaque, endemic to the Western Ghats.
• Nanda Devi: the Himalayan musk deer.
• Manas: the golden langur, found along the Assam-Bhutan border.
• Seshachalam Hills (Andhra Pradesh): the golden gecko, endemic to the Eastern Ghats.

The options that put the golden langur in the Nilgiris or the golden gecko in the Nilgiris mix up the Western Ghats and northeastern animals.

Answer: A

Both Statement I and Statement II are correct.

In ecological succession, communities change through a series of seral stages towards a stable climax community. In general the number of species and the complexity of the community increase along the way, as pioneer species are replaced by a richer variety of plants and animals.

In practice, most landscapes do not reach climax. Successions are held back, or arrested, by natural disturbances such as fire, flood or grazing, and by human activities such as farming, logging and burning. So Statement II is correct as well.

Answer: C

X is the Red Panda.

Each clue fits it. The red panda is a shy, tree-dwelling mammal of the eastern Himalaya, found in Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and parts of West Bengal, and it is the state animal of Sikkim. Master Shifu, the kung fu teacher in DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda films, is a red panda, and International Red Panda Day falls on the third Saturday of September.

The snow leopard is the state animal of Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh, the one-horned rhinoceros is associated with Assam, and the star tortoise matches none of the clues.

Answer: C

The dominant male will change sex.

Clownfish are protandrous hermaphrodites: they are born male and can become female. A group living in an anemone has one breeding female, the largest, and a dominant breeding male. When the female dies or is removed, the dominant male changes into a female and the largest non-breeding male rises to become the new breeding male.

Sea anemones do not attract fish with light or prey on their resident clownfish, and the group does not abandon its anemone.

Answer: A

The strategy that does not directly involve community participation is the Demarcation of Wildlife Sanctuaries.

Sanctuaries are notified and their boundaries demarcated by the government under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. It is an administrative and legal measure carried out by the forest department, not one led by local people.

The other three are built on community participation: the Chipko Movement of the 1970s, in which villagers in the Himalaya hugged trees to stop felling; the Beej Bachao Andolan of Tehri Garhwal farmers to save traditional seeds; and Joint Forest Management, under which village committees protect forests in partnership with the forest department.

Answer: B

The primary impact is loss of habitat.

Rising temperatures, changing rainfall, sea-level rise, melting ice and coral bleaching alter or destroy the places where species live faster than many can move or adapt, which pushes them towards decline and extinction.

Climate change reduces rather than increases species diversity. It tends to spread vector-borne diseases into new areas rather than decreasing them, and it does nothing to reduce environmental pollution, which is one of its causes.

Answer: C

The one not in the Evil Quartet is global warming.

The 'Evil Quartet' is Paul Ehrlich's name for the four major causes of biodiversity loss, as taught in NCERT biology:

1. Habitat loss and fragmentation
2. Over-exploitation
3. Alien species invasions
4. Co-extinctions

Global warming does harm biodiversity, but it is not one of the four. The missing fourth member of the quartet here is co-extinction, the loss of a species that depends on another one that has died out.

Answer: D

Such wetlands are associated with a river.

Flood plains are the flat lands beside a river that it floods periodically, and low-lying depressions on them, such as oxbow lakes, backswamps and marshes, hold water after floods. These riverine (riparian) wetlands are fed and renewed by the river's flood pulse.

Lake-fringe (lacustrine) wetlands and ponds lie in basins, not on flood plains, and dammed water forms reservoirs, which are artificial. Only the river creates flood plains.