Environment & Ecology Quiz: Wetlands, Mangroves and Coral Reefs

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.

The Harike Wetland in Punjab was created by building a barrage just below the point where the Beas joins the Sutlej, so the first pair is correct and it is the only one.

The convention takes its name from Ramsar, a town on the Caspian coast of Iran, where it was signed on 2 February 1971; it came into force in 1975 and is the oldest of the modern global environmental treaties.

The correct answer is B, 2 February, the anniversary of the signing of the Ramsar Convention in 1971, which is why the day carries that date.

Keibul Lamjao National Park rests on these mats and is the last natural home of the sangai, the brow-antlered deer of Manipur.

It is named after the sundari tree, holds the only mangrove population of the Royal Bengal tiger, and the Indian portion is a national park, a biosphere reserve and a World Heritage Site.

Mangrove mud is waterlogged and short of oxygen, so these roots grow vertically out of the soil and take in air through small pores called lenticels; they are the classic adaptation asked about in examinations, along with stilt roots and vivipary.

These single-celled algae live within the tissue of the coral polyp, photosynthesise, hand most of the food they make to the polyp and give the reef its colour; the polyp in return offers shelter and nutrients, a textbook case of symbiosis.

Its water is muddy, its tidal range is among the highest in the country and several rivers empty into it, so the clear, silt-free conditions that corals need are absent; it is known instead for tidal energy potential.

Charles Darwin explained its formation: a fringing reef grows around a volcanic island, the island slowly subsides, the reef keeps growing upward towards the light, and in the end only a ring of reef and a lagoon are left where the island stood.

The Montreux Record lists Ramsar sites where the ecological character has changed, is changing or is likely to change because of pollution, encroachment, siltation or other interference, so that the parties can direct attention and assistance there.

Chilika is a shallow lagoon on the Bay of Bengal coast, separated from the sea by a sandy ridge and joined to it by a narrow mouth, which is why its water is brackish.