Test: Environment & Ecology - 2 - UPSC MCQ

• Animal Waste like Urea, Uric acid and Death of vegetation add nitrogen in the form of nitrates directly into the soil.

• Coal combustion adds nitrogen to the atmosphere not to soil directly, and from there it falls back to earth in the form of acid rain and acid rain adds nitrogen to the soil.

• CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals.

• It is also known as the Washington Convention.

• It aims to ensure that international trade of wild animals and plants’ specimens does not threaten the species’ survival in the wild.

• It accords varying degrees of protection to more than 35,000 species of animals and plants.

• Participation is voluntary, and countries that have agreed to be bound by the Convention are known as Parties.

• Although CITES is legally binding on the Parties, it does not take the place of national laws. Instead, it provides a framework respected by each Party, which must adopt their domestic legislation to implement CITES at the national level.

• The Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) is a statutory advisory body under the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MOEF).

• It derives its legal structure from the prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.

• It is headquartered in Chennai, frames a range of rules on how animals ought to be humanely treated everywhere.

• The term of the office of Members is three years and presently consists of 22 members from several government organisations along with animal rights activists and parliamentarian FUNCTIONS:

• To advise the Central Government on the matters relating to the medical care provided in animal hospitals.

• To advise the Government about slaughterhouses and vehicles’ design to lessen the burden on draught animals.

• To give financial assistance to animal welfare organisations, rescue establishments and animal hospitals.

• Arsenicosis or Black foot is caused by exposure over a period of time to Arsenic in drinking water.

• It may also be due to intake of arsenic via food or air. Itai-Itai disease is caused by Cadmium poisoning.

• A biodiversity hotspot is a region with a high level of endemic species.

• Endemic species are those species that are found in a certain limited area.

• Two of the twelve biodiversity hotspots in the world are in India. They are the NorthEastern region and the Western Ghats.

• Mega biodiversity: A unique combination of different plants and animal species which is not available anywhere.

• The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organisation working in nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources.

• It is involved in data gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, and education.

• lUCN's mission is to "influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable".

• The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data List), founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of biological species’ global conservation status.

• Sulfur dioxide is released if the fuel contains sulfur compounds. This gas contributes to acid rain.

• Lichens can be used as air pollution indicators, especially of sulfur dioxide concentration in the atmosphere.

• Lichens are plants that grow in exposed places such as rocks or tree bark.

• The first pair is not correct because it's Ramganga not Ganga which flows through Corbett national park.

• The second pair is not correct because Kaziranga is crisscrossed by four rivers — Brahmaputra, Diphlu, Mora Diphlu and Mora Dhansiri.

• The third pair is also not correct because it is the Kunthipuzha River that flows through the Silent Valley.

• Neelakurinji is a shrub that is found in the shola forests of the Western Ghats in South India.

• It belongs to the genus Strobilanthes which has around 250 species.

• Blooming periods of different species of Kurinji differ from each other.

• Neelakurinji blooms once in 12 years, and its gregarious last happened in 2018.

• It grows at an altitude of 1300 to 2400 metres.

• Besides the Western Ghats, Neelakurinji is also seen in the Shevaroys in the Eastern Ghats.

• D is not a feature because Eutrophic lakes have high primary productivity which makes it occupied by Algae blooms.

• Eutrophic body of water, commonly a lake or pond, has high biological productivity.

• Due to excessive nutrients, especially nitrogen and phosphorus, these water bodies can support an abundance of aquatic plants. Usually, the water body will be dominated either by aquatic plants or algae.

• The lionfish is a carnivorous fish native to the South Pacific and Indian Oceans (i.e., the Indo-Pacific region), including the Red Sea.

• It is an invasive species in the Atlantic Ocean, and it has no known predators in the Atlantic Ocean.

• Lionfish have been found in water depths from 1 to S00 feet on hard bottom, mangrove, seagrass, coral, and artificial reefs (like shipwrecks).

• Lionfish are nocturnal hunters, and it is a top predator in the food chain.

• Ecological succession, the process by which the structure of a biological community evolves.

• Two different types of succession: primary and secondary.

• Primary succession occurs in essentially lifeless areas regions in which the soil is incapable of sustaining life due to such factors as lava flows, newly formed sand dunes, or rocks left from a retreating glacier.

• Secondary succession occurs in areas where a previously existed community has been removed; it is typified by smaller-scale disturbances that do not eliminate all life and nutrients from the environment.

• Secondary succession begins in areas where natural biotic communities have been destroyed, such as abandoned farmlands, burned or cut forests, and flooded lands.

• Since some soil or sediment is present, Secondary succession is faster than primary succession,n.

• Dancing Deer is the popular name of Sangai Deer, found only in Keibul Lamjao National Park (KLNP) in Loktak Lake in Manipur.

• Loktak is known for Phumdis (floating vegetation), and the deer often needs to balance itself on them, so it appears that they are dancing.

• The brow-antlered or the dancing deer is a medium-sized deer, with uniquely distinctive antlers, measuring 100-110 cm. in length with extremely long brow tine, which forms the main beam.

• The Basel Convention is for the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal.

• It was designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations and prevent the transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries (LDCs). It does not, however, address the movement of radioactive waste.

• The Minamata Convention on Mercury is an international treaty designed to protect human health and the environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury and mercury compounds.

• Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is an international environmental treaty that aims to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

• Homeostasis: The ability to maintain a steady-state within a constantly changing environment is essential for living systems’ survival. The maintenance of a constant internal environment is called homeostasis.

• The nervous and endocrine systems exert the ultimate control over homeostasis because they coordinate the body's systems’ functions.

• Regulation of body temperature, blood pressure, pH, and glucose concentration are four examples of how the body maintains homeostasis

• The Climate Change Performance Index is an instrument designed to enhance transparency in international climate politics. It aims to put political and social pressure on those countries which have, up until now, failed to take ambitious action on climate protection.

• The publication was issued by German watch and Climate Action Network Europe.

• Pulicat Lake is the second largest brackish water lake or lagoon in India.

• It straddles the border of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu states on the Coromandel Coast in South India.

• The lake encompasses the Pulicat Lake Bird Sanctuary.

• The barrier island of Sriharikota separates the lake from the Bay of Bengal.

• The sixth mass extinction of life on Earth is unfolding more quickly than feared, scientists have warned.

• More than 30% of animals with a backbone - fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals - are declining in both range and population, according to the first comprehensive analysis of these trends.

Causes of Extinction

1. The main drivers of wildlife decline are habitat loss, overconsumption, pollution, invasive species, disease.

2. Also, a cause is poaching in tigers, elephants, rhinos and other large animals prized for their body parts.

3. 3) Climate change is poised to become a major threat in the coming decades

• GHG Protocol establishes comprehensive global standardised frameworks to measure and manage greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from private and public sector operations, value chains and mitigation actions.

• Building on a 20-year partnership between World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), GHG Protocol works with governments, industry associations, NGOs, businesses and other organisations.

• An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with their environment’s non-living components, interacting as a system.

• These biotic and abiotic components are regarded as linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows.

• Sacred Groves, National Parks and other protected areas, biosphere reserves etc. are in situ modes of wildlife conservation. In situ conservation is the preservation of species and populations of living organisms in a natural state in the habitat where they naturally occur.

• Ex-situ conservation is the preservation of biological diversity components outside as wild and cultivated or species and draws on a diverse body of techniques and facilities. Ex-situ techniques include seed storage, captive breeding, slow-growth storage, DNA storage.

• An Umbrella species is a large animal or another organism on which many other species depend.

• Umbrella species are very similar to keystone species, but umbrella species are usually migratory and need a large habitat.

• Protecting umbrella species automatically protects a host of other species.

• Tigers are an example of an umbrella species.

• Foundation Species refers to the species that creates or maintains an ecosystem.

• The area recorded as forests in the government records is called forest area, not forest cover.

• Forest cover refers to all lands more than one hectare in area, with a tree canopy density of more than 10 percent irrespective of ownership and legal status.

• Such lands may not necessarily be a recorded forest area.

• It also includes orchards, bamboo and palm.

• Kanha National Park is one of India’s tiger reserves and the largest national park of Madhya Pradesh. It is not a UNESCO World Heritage.

• A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area officially recognised by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

• Kaziranga, Sundarbans and Keoladeo In India, There Are 25 Heritage Sites, And 7 Natural Sites national parks have been included in the UNESCO World Heritage.

• Its population size that the environment can sustain indefinitely.

• The carrying capacity of a biological species in an environment is the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water, and other necessities available in the environment.