Environment & Ecology GK Questions with Answers – Page 15

The Russian ecologist G. F. Gause worked with cultures of Paramecium and concluded that when two species need exactly the same limited resource in the same space, one of them is always eliminated in the long run; this is the competitive exclusion principle, also called Gause's principle.

Prickly pear cactus was taken to Australia in the nineteenth century and spread uncontrollably over grazing land because no local animal fed on it.

The egret walks beside grazing cattle and feeds on the grasshoppers and other insects flushed out of the grass by the cattle's hooves.

Cuscuta, known as dodder or amarbel, is a flowering plant that has lost its chlorophyll and its leaves and cannot make its own food.

A lichen is a close partnership between an alga and a fungus in which both partners gain. The alga prepares carbohydrates by photosynthesis and shares them with the fungus, while the fungus absorbs and holds water and minerals and anchors the pair to bare rock or tree bark.

A caterpillar feeds directly on green leaves, so it is a herbivore, which is what a primary consumer is. In a food chain energy flows from producers to consumers.

India's net zero target announced at COP-26 is the year 2070, not 2047. At COP-26 in Glasgow in November 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced five commitments called the Panchamrit (five nectar elements).

Energy shrinks sharply at each step of a food chain, so after a few levels too little is left to support another level of consumers.

The UNCCD works through national action programmes, international partnership and local participation, but its special focus is Africa, not South Asia and North Africa.

India has no native marsupials, but marsupials are not confined to predator-free montane grasslands. Marsupials are mammals whose young are born at a very early stage and usually grow further in the mother's pouch.

Halophytes are plants adapted to grow in soil or water with a high salt content. The word comes from the Greek 'halos', meaning salt.

Frogs, toads and salamanders react quickly to changes in water, air and temperature, which makes them the classic indicator animals.

Going south from the Nepal border, the order is Dudhwa, Panna, Pench and then Indravati.

TRAFFIC is a non-governmental wildlife trade monitoring network, not a UNEP bureau, and its mission is the one given in statement 2.

The Alma-Ata Declaration is about primary healthcare and the Talanoa Dialogue is about climate change; the other two pairs are wrong.

Both Statement II and Statement III are true, and each one is a reason why a circular economy cuts greenhouse gas emissions.

Faced with a steep fall in the water table around Chennai, the state amended its building rules in 2003 to require a rainwater harvesting structure in buildings, and it is cited as the first state in the country to make such harvesting compulsory.

The plan, released in 2008, set up eight national missions, among them the National Solar Mission, the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency, the National Water Mission, the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem, the National Mission for a Green India, the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture, the National…

Mission Amrit Sarovar was launched on 24 April 2022, National Panchayati Raj Day, as part of the celebration of seventy-five years of independence, and the number 75 in the target of seventy-five ponds in every district of the country comes from that anniversary.

Atal Bhujal Yojana, launched in 2019 under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, is a central sector scheme part funded by the World Bank.