Environment & Ecology Mixed Quiz: Set 41

The correct answer is B, World Wide Fund for Nature. WWF has published the Living Planet Report since the late 1990s, and its central measure, the Living Planet Index, tracks the average change in the size of monitored vertebrate populations. WWF, founded in 1961 and based at Gland in Switzerland, also runs the Earth Hour campaign begun in 2007 and carries the giant panda as its logo. Option A, Greenpeace, is a campaigning organisation known for non-violent direct action and its ship Rainbow Warrior; it does not publish an index of this kind. Option C, the United Nations Development Programme, brings out the Human Development Report, which is about income, education and health, a report students often misattribute in this very question. Option D, the IPCC, produces Assessment Reports on climate science and does no population monitoring of its own. Match report to body: Living Planet to WWF, Human Development to UNDP, Emissions Gap to UNEP.

The correct answer is C, 1 and 3 only. BirdLife International is a worldwide partnership of independent national conservation organisations, with its secretariat at Cambridge in the United Kingdom, so statement 1 is correct. It is also the body that identifies and maintains the inventory of Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas, the sites that hold key populations of birds, which makes statement 3 correct. Statement 2 is the trap: the concept of biodiversity hotspots was proposed by the British ecologist Norman Myers in 1988 and was later developed by Conservation International, not by BirdLife International. Because statement 2 is wrong, option D, which takes all three, falls away, and option B, which keeps statement 2 while dropping the correct statement 1, is doubly wrong. Option A is incomplete because it leaves out statement 3. Remember the pairing: hotspots belong to Myers and Conservation International, Important Bird Areas belong to BirdLife.

The correct answer is A, ecotone. An ecotone is the zone where two adjoining ecosystems meet and blend, such as the mangrove belt between land and sea, an estuary between a river and the ocean, or the strip where grassland gives way to forest. Its conditions are intermediate, it is usually linear and narrow, and it holds species from both neighbours together with edge species of its own, which produces the higher species density called the edge effect. Option B, ecocline, is the close relative and the common trap: an ecocline is a gradual environmental gradient with change spread out smoothly, whereas an ecotone marks a comparatively sharp boundary. Option C, ecad, means a population whose form has been moulded by local habitat conditions rather than by heredity. Option D, niche, is the functional role of a species in its community, not a place at all. Fix the pair in memory as sharp boundary equals ecotone, gradual gradient equals ecocline.

The correct answer is C, 2006. The EIA Notification of 2006 replaced the earlier notification of 1994 and reorganised the whole clearance process, chiefly by dividing projects into Category A, appraised and cleared at the central level, and Category B, appraised and cleared at the state level, and by laying down the four stages of screening, scoping, public consultation and appraisal. Option A is wrong because 1986 is the year of the parent Act, the Environment (Protection) Act, not of any notification. Option B is wrong because the notification of 1994, which first made assessment compulsory in India, has been superseded. Option D is wrong because 2010 is the year of the National Green Tribunal Act, which created the forum for appeals against clearance decisions, a related but separate law.

The correct answer is B, the World Meteorological Organization and UNEP. The IPCC was created in 1988 so that governments would have an authoritative, regularly updated assessment of climate science; its secretariat is at Geneva, and it shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. A point worth remembering is that the IPCC does no original research and runs no instruments: it reviews published literature and issues Assessment Reports and special reports. Option A brings in UNESCO, which works on education, science and culture and runs the World Heritage and Biosphere Reserve programmes, but had no part in creating the IPCC. Option C names UNDP and FAO, which deal with development and with food and agriculture respectively. Option D names the World Bank, which finances projects and hosts the Global Environment Facility but did not set up the panel. The WMO link is the key, because climate assessment rests on meteorological data.

The correct answer is B, 20 per cent. One of the five goals of the National Water Mission is a 20 per cent improvement in water use efficiency, alongside comprehensive water data, attention to areas most vulnerable to shortage, more recycling and better basin-level planning; the mission is handled by the Ministry of Jal Shakti. Option A is wrong because 10 per cent understates the stated goal and is not a figure the mission documents use. Option C is wrong because 25 per cent is a plausible-looking round number but belongs to no goal of the mission. Option D is wrong because 40 per cent is far above anything the mission promises; such a jump in efficiency is not claimed by any national water programme. Papers pair this figure with the Green India Mission's 5 million hectares, so learn the two together.

The correct answer is B, Robert T. Paine. Paine introduced the term in 1969 after an experiment on the rocky Pacific shore in which he removed the starfish Pisaster ochraceus from study plots. The starfish had been keeping mussel numbers down; once it was gone the mussels crowded out other organisms and the number of species on the shore fell sharply. From this he argued that a few species hold the structure of a community in place out of all proportion to their own numbers. Option A, Charles Elton, is remembered for the functional or Eltonian niche and for pyramids of numbers, not for this term. Option C, G. F. Gause, gave the competitive exclusion principle, which says that two species cannot occupy the same niche indefinitely. Option D, Norman Myers, proposed the concept of biodiversity hotspots in 1988. Keep the four names and their four ideas separate, because papers mix them deliberately.

The correct answer is B, 1971. The Convention on Wetlands was signed in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971, which is why the sites designated under it are called Ramsar sites; it came into force in 1975, India became a party in 1982, and World Wetlands Day is observed on 2 February to mark the date of signature. Option A is wrong because 1968 is not associated with any of the major conservation treaties asked in these papers. Option C is wrong because 1979 is the year of the Convention on Migratory Species, signed at Bonn, which deals with migratory animals rather than with wetlands. Option D is wrong because 1992 is the year of the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro, which produced the Convention on Biological Diversity and the climate change convention.

The correct answer is C, Montreal, Canada. The Convention on Biological Diversity was opened for signature at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and came into force in 1993; its secretariat works from Montreal, and its two protocols are the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety and the Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and the fair sharing of benefits. Option A, Bonn, is the seat of the UNFCCC secretariat and also of the Convention on Migratory Species, which is itself called the Bonn Convention, so the city is a strong distractor. Option B, Geneva, holds the CITES secretariat, the IPCC and the World Meteorological Organization. Option D, Nairobi, is the headquarters of UNEP, which administers the CBD but does not house its secretariat. The four-city table, Nairobi for UNEP, Bonn for UNFCCC, Montreal for CBD and Geneva for CITES, is worth memorising as a block.

The correct answer is A, Article 3 of the UNFCCC of 1992. The article directs parties to protect the climate system on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, and adds that the developed country parties should take the lead. India and other developing countries rely on it to resist a single uniform obligation for all. B deals with the phasing out of chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone depleting substances and uses a different form of differentiation through grace periods. C is the treaty on the conservation of wetlands, signed in the Iranian city of Ramsar. D is a declaration of broad environmental principles that predates the climate convention and does not contain this formulation. The phrase equity and CBDR-RC in a question stem almost always points to the climate convention.

The correct answer is A, air pollution. A lichen is a partnership of an alga and a fungus that takes its water and minerals straight from the air, having no protective cuticle and no roots. It therefore absorbs dissolved gases and particles without any filter, and sulphur dioxide in particular destroys its chlorophyll. Because of this, lichens vanish from industrial towns and crowded city centres and flourish in clean country air, and the barren belt around a smoke source is called a lichen desert. Option B is wrong because sound is a physical disturbance that does not act on lichen tissue. Option C, thermal pollution, concerns warm water discharged into rivers and lakes, where fish and aquatic invertebrates are the indicators. Option D, soil pollution, is better indicated by earthworms and soil microbes. Learn the set together: lichens for air, mayfly and stonefly larvae for clean water, Tubifex worms for organic waste, and coliform bacteria for sewage.

The correct answer is B, the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. The Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act of 2022 brought the parent Act into line with India obligations under CITES, reorganised its schedules and for the first time inserted an express power allowing the Central Government to regulate or prohibit the import, trade, possession and proliferation of invasive alien species. Option A is wrong because the Forest (Conservation) Act deals with the diversion of forest land to non-forest use. Option C is wrong because the Biological Diversity Act governs access to biological resources and benefit sharing, and it was itself amended in 2023 for different purposes. Option D is wrong because the Environment (Protection) Act is the umbrella law under which pollution and environmental standards are notified, not a wildlife trade statute.

The correct answer is A, the Convention on Wetlands. It was signed on 2 February 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar, which is why the treaty is always called the Ramsar Convention and why 2 February is kept as World Wetlands Day. It came into force in 1975, its secretariat is at Gland in Switzerland, and a listed site whose ecological character is threatened is placed on the Montreux Record. Option B, CITES, was signed at Washington in 1973 and entered into force in 1975, controlling trade through three Appendices from Geneva. Option C, the Convention on Migratory Species, was concluded at Bonn in 1979 and is therefore known as the Bonn Convention. Option D, the Convention to Combat Desertification, was adopted at Paris in 1994 and has its secretariat at Bonn. Attach each treaty to its city: Ramsar 1971, Washington 1973, Bonn 1979, Paris 1994.

The correct answer is B, Rajasthan. The breeding centres stand in the Jaisalmer region, near the Desert National Park, which holds the largest surviving population of the bird, and they are run by the state forest department with the Wildlife Institute of India: eggs are collected from the wild, hatched in incubators and the chicks reared for release. Option A is wrong, though Gujarat has bustard habitat in the Kutch grasslands and is part of the recovery programme. Option C is wrong because Maharashtra has a small population in the Nannaj area of Solapur but no breeding centre of this kind. Option D is wrong because Madhya Pradesh is associated with the cheetah reintroduction at Kuno, not with the bustard. The Great Indian Bustard is the state bird of Rajasthan, which makes the pairing easier to remember.

The correct answer is B, the competitive exclusion principle, also called Gause's principle after G. F. Gause, who demonstrated it with two species of Paramecium grown in the same culture. Where conditions stay constant and the resource is limiting, the better competitor increases while the weaker one dies out or shifts its niche. Species escape this fate by resource partitioning, dividing the resource by space, time or prey size, as in MacArthur's warblers feeding at different heights of one spruce tree. Option A, Allen's rule, says that animals of colder regions have shorter extremities, which is a thermoregulation rule and not about competition. Option C, the edge effect, is the higher density and diversity of species found in an ecotone. Option D, Liebig's law of the minimum, states that growth is limited by the resource in shortest supply. Only option B deals with two species and a shared niche, which is the giveaway in the question stem.

The correct answer is B, becquerel. The becquerel, symbol Bq, is the SI unit of activity and equals one disintegration per second. A is wrong because the curie is the older, non-SI unit of the same quantity, defined from the activity of one gram of radium, and one curie equals 3.7 multiplied by ten raised to the power ten becquerel; it is a correct unit of radioactivity but not the SI one, which makes it the strongest distractor here. C is wrong because the roentgen measures exposure, that is the ionisation produced in air, and not the activity of the source. D is wrong because the sievert measures equivalent dose, the biological effect of the radiation absorbed by tissue; the related unit gray measures absorbed dose, with one gray equal to 100 rad and one sievert equal to 100 rem.

The correct answer is B, the Bombay Natural History Society. Founded in 1883, it is India's oldest conservation body, it works from Mumbai, and besides the popular magazine Hornbill it publishes a scientific journal and runs long-running bird and wildlife surveys; Salim Ali, the country's best known ornithologist, was associated with it for decades. Option A, the Wildlife Institute of India, was set up in 1982 at Dehradun and trains wildlife managers and conducts research for the forest departments. Option C, the Zoological Survey of India, was founded in 1916 and works from Kolkata on the survey and documentation of the country's fauna; the Botanical Survey of India, from 1890, is its plant counterpart in the same city. Option D, the Centre for Science and Environment, is a New Delhi research and advocacy body founded in 1980 and is known for its reports and the magazine Down To Earth.

The correct answer is D, very dense forest. The Forest Survey of India divides forest cover by the proportion of ground shaded by the tree canopy. Above seventy per cent the patch is very dense forest; from forty up to seventy per cent it is moderately dense forest; from ten up to forty per cent it is open forest; and below ten per cent it is scrub, which is counted separately and not as forest cover. Option A, open forest, therefore belongs to the ten to forty band and makes up a large share of the recorded cover in India. Option B, scrub, is the degraded category below ten per cent. Option C, moderately dense forest, is the forty to seventy band. A connected definition worth learning is that any patch of one hectare or more with more than ten per cent canopy is counted as forest cover whatever its legal status, which is why orchards and plantations can enter the figure.

The correct answer is B, keystone species. A keystone species holds the structure of its community together out of all proportion to its own numbers, exactly as the keystone at the top of an arch holds the stones in place. Sea otters eat sea urchins; when otters were hunted out, urchin numbers exploded, the urchins grazed the kelp down to bare rock, and the fish and invertebrates that sheltered in the kelp disappeared with it. Option A, a flagship species, is a charismatic animal used to win public support and funding, such as the giant panda on the WWF emblem; the role is about publicity, not ecological function. Option C, an indicator species, signals the state of the environment, as lichens signal sulphur dioxide in the air. Option D, an invasive species, is one introduced outside its native range that spreads and harms local species, like water hyacinth. The chain of collapse described in the stem is the mark of a keystone species.

The correct answer is A, the realised niche. G. Evelyn Hutchinson distinguished the fundamental niche, which is the full range of conditions and resources a species could use if nothing interfered, from the realised niche, which is the narrower part left to it once competitors, predators, parasites and disease are at work. The realised niche is therefore always equal to or smaller than the fundamental niche, and it can widen again if a competitor is removed, a phenomenon called competitive release. Option B, the Grinnellian niche, is Joseph Grinnell's version of the concept, built on the physical conditions a species requires, and it is not defined by competition. Option C, a microhabitat, is a small distinct pocket inside a habitat, such as the underside of a log or the soil of a termite mound. Option D, ecological equivalents, are unrelated species that fill similar niches in different regions, such as the kangaroo of Australia and the deer of Asia.