QUIZ – 2020: INSIGHTS STATIC , 29 June 2021 – Environment – INSIGHTSIAS

Solution: d)

International Snow Leopard Day was observed on 23 October. The day came into being with the adoption of the Bishkek Declaration by 12 countries on the conservation of snow leopards.

Solution: b)

UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB):

• The idea of the biosphere reserve was initiated by UNESCO in 1974 under the MAB with the objective of obtaining international cooperation for the conservation of the biospheres.
• Launched in 1971, UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) is an Intergovernmental Scientific Programme that aims to establish a scientific basis for the improvement of relationships between people and their environments.
• MAB combines the natural and social sciences, economics and education to improve human livelihoods and the equitable sharing of benefits, and to safeguard natural and managed ecosystems.
• Under this, Protection is granted not only to the flora and fauna of the protected region, but also to the human communities who inhabit these regions, and their ways of life.
• The first of India’s reserves to make it to UNESCO’s list was Tamil Nadu’s Niligiri Biosphere Reserve in 2000.

Solution: c)

Commensalism: An orchid growing as an epiphyte on a mango branch, and barnacles growing on the back of a whale benefit while neither the mango tree nor the whale derives any apparent benefit.

When we think of predator and prey, most probably it is the tiger and the deer that readily come to our mind, but a sparrow eating any seed is no less a predator. Although animals eating plants are categorised separately as herbivores, they are, in a broad ecological context, not very different from predators.

Mutualism: This interaction confers benefits on both the interacting species. Lichens represent an intimate mutualistic relationship between a fungus and photosynthesising algae or cyanobacteria.

Solution: c)

The amount of energy decreases at successive trophic levels. When any organism dies it is converted to detritus or dead biomass that serves as an energy source for decomposers. Organisms at each trophic level depend on those at the lower trophic level for their energy demands. Each trophic level has a certain mass of living material at a particular time called as the standing crop. The standing crop is measured as the mass of living organisms (biomass) or the number in a unit area.

Solution: d)

A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region with significant levels of biodiversity that is threatened by human habitation.

To qualify as a biodiversity hotspot, a region must meet two strict criteria:

• It must have at least 1,500 vascular plants as endemics— which is to say, it must have a high percentage of plant life found nowhere else on the planet. A hotspot, in other words, is irreplaceable.
• It must have 30% or less of its original natural vegetation. In other words, it must be threatened.

Around the world, 36 areas qualify as hotspots.

India hosts 4 biodiversity hotspots: the Himalayas, the Western Ghats, the Indo-​Burma region and the Sundaland (Includes Nicobar group of Islands).