Environment & Ecology Previous Year Questions (PYQ) with Answers – Page 9

Cnidarians, fungi and protozoa all include species that live in close, mutually useful partnerships with other organisms. Symbiosis means two different species living closely together, often to the benefit of both.

The Common Carbon Metric is a standard way to measure and report the energy use and emissions of buildings in use.

Phosphorus has no gaseous form in the cycle, so it enters ecosystems mainly when phosphate rocks weather. The phosphorus cycle is a sedimentary cycle.

Magnetite nanoparticles in polluted air come from high-temperature combustion and friction: vehicle engines, brake wear and power plants. Magnetite is an iron oxide (Fe3O4).

The declaration was launched at the 2014 UN Climate Summit, sets a timeline to end forest loss and has a mixed set of endorsers, but it is voluntary and India did not sign it.

This is the incorrect statement: the world has 36 recognised biodiversity hotspots, far fewer than 100. The hotspot idea came from the British ecologist Norman Myers, who in 1988 named ten tropical forest regions that were very rich in species and under heavy threat.

Cyanobacteria and diatoms carry out photosynthesis, so they are phytoplankton, the primary producers at the base of ocean food chains.

In ecology, a population is defined by three things together: one species, one place and one time. Ecology studies life in levels.

Lichens and mosses can live on bare rock, tree bark and walls without any soil, and they are the pioneer species of primary succession.

Copper smelting is a concern for its sulphur dioxide emissions and for heavy metals leaching from its slag, not for lethal carbon monoxide.

Nuclear power runs on uranium and thorium, mined minerals whose stock is finite, so it is a non-renewable source even though it is low in carbon.

R2, short for Responsible Recycling, is a standard for environmentally responsible electronics recycling. The R2 standard was developed with the support of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and is now managed by the non-profit SERI (Sustainable Electronics Recycling International).

Nokrek lies in the Garo Hills of Meghalaya and represents the North-East India biogeographic zone in the network of biosphere reserves; it is known for the wild citrus relative called the Indian wild orange and for the hoolock gibbon.

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.

An artificial or man-made ecosystem is one that people create and keep going by their own effort, deciding which species live in it and supplying water, nutrients and protection.

NDMA is the apex body for disaster management in India, created under the Disaster Management Act of 2005 and chaired by the Prime Minister; it frames policies and plans for prevention, mitigation and preparedness.

An aquifer is a body of rock or loose sediment that is both saturated with groundwater and permeable enough to let that water move freely, so a well sunk into it keeps yielding water.

The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in Japan in December 1997 and in force from February 2005, set binding cuts for six greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride.

Haryali is a centrally sponsored watershed development project launched in 2003 by the Ministry of Rural Development, and its whole point is that the village panchayat plans and carries out the work itself.

These twin lakes lie near Jammu in the Jammu and Kashmir region, not in Uttar Pradesh, so they are the odd one out in this list.