Environment & Ecology GK Questions with Answers – Page 39

The ozone layer shields us from the Sun's harmful ultraviolet rays, so when it thins, that protection is lost. It lies in the stratosphere, roughly 15 to 35 km above the Earth, and absorbs most of the UV-B and UV-C radiation.

A forest forms and runs on its own, without any human effort, so it is a natural ecosystem.

The Indian Forest Act of 1878 created the three classes of reserved, protected and village forests. British interest in Indian forests grew as the railways and shipbuilding needed huge amounts of timber.

Both treaties were made to save the ozone layer in the stratosphere, which screens out harmful ultraviolet rays. The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer was adopted in 1985 as a framework agreement.

A johad is a small crescent-shaped earthen dam that villagers build together to catch and store rainwater. It is used mainly in Rajasthan and Haryana, where rain is scarce and falls in only a few months of the year.

The United Nations General Assembly named 5 June as World Environment Day in 1972, and the day has been observed every year since 1974.

Sulphur dioxide and nitric oxide are the gases behind acid rain. When coal, petrol and diesel are burnt in power plants, factories and vehicles, they release sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen such as nitric oxide.

Rachel Carson, an American marine biologist and writer, published Silent Spring in 1962.

A bioindicator is a living organism whose presence, absence or health tells us about the quality of the environment. Lichens are a partnership between a fungus and an alga or cyanobacterium; they have no roots and take water and nutrients straight from the air and rain.

Valmiki National Park and Bhimbandh Wildlife Sanctuary are both in Bihar, while the other two are in other States. Valmiki National Park, with its tiger reserve, lies in West Champaran district in the far north-west of Bihar, along the Nepal border, where it adjoins Nepal's Chitwan National Park.

Carbon dioxide, water vapour and CFCs are all greenhouse gases, because each of them traps the heat that the Earth gives off and warms the lower atmosphere.

The Kachchh Biosphere Reserve in Gujarat, notified in 2008, covers about 12,454 square kilometres and is the largest biosphere reserve in India by area.

The 3 R's of waste management are Reduce, Reuse and Recycle; Refuse is not one of them. Reduce means creating less waste in the first place, such as buying fewer packaged goods and switching off lights to save power.

Rainforest soil is actually poor in nutrients, even though the forest above it is the richest on land. Heat and heavy rain make dead leaves decompose within weeks, and the released nutrients are taken up almost at once by the dense roots and fungi of the trees.

Each fig species is pollinated only by its own tiny fig wasp, and the two have evolved together over millions of years.

The Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG) is one of the expert groups of the IUCN's Species Survival Commission, and it manages the Global Invasive Species Database.

Earthworms, millipedes and woodlice feed on dead plant and animal matter, called detritus, so they are detritivores. Detritivores break dead leaves and bodies into small pieces, which speeds up the work of decomposers such as bacteria and fungi that finish the breakdown and return nutrients to the soil.

Blue carbon is the carbon stored by marine and coastal ecosystems, especially mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass meadows.

When coal, petrol or diesel burn with too little oxygen, the burning is incomplete and gives out carbon monoxide, soot and unburnt hydrocarbons, the worst pollutants from vehicles and power plants.

In this food chain grass is the producer, the impala is the herbivore and the hyena is the predator that keeps the impala population in check.