Biodiversity Conservation: NEET MCQs with Answers

Explanation: A botanical garden conserves plants, including threatened species, outside their natural habitat and is thus an ex-situ method. Biosphere reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, national parks and sacred groves all protect species within their natural habitat and are in-situ methods of conservation.

Explanation: Sacred groves are tracts of forest protected on religious grounds where the vegetation and wildlife are conserved in their own natural habitat, so they are an in-situ method. Wildlife safari parks, seed banks and botanical gardens all maintain organisms or germplasm away from the natural habitat and are therefore ex-situ.

Explanation: Wildlife safari parks keep threatened animals in an enclosed artificial setting outside their natural habitat, where they are protected and given special care, so they represent ex-situ conservation. Biodiversity hotspots, the Amazon rain forest and the Himalayan region are natural habitats where in-situ conservation is practised.

Explanation: A biosphere reserve consists of three concentric zones. The innermost core zone is legally protected and no human activity whatsoever is permitted there. The surrounding buffer zone allows limited research and educational activity, and the outermost transition zone permits human settlement, cropping and recreation.

Explanation: The Gangetic river dolphin (Platanista gangetica) was declared the National Aquatic Animal of India in 2009. It is an endangered, nearly blind freshwater dolphin of the Ganga–Brahmaputra–Meghna river system that navigates and hunts by echolocation.

Explanation: Storing gametes of threatened species in liquid nitrogen at –196°C keeps them viable and fertile for very long periods and allows the species to be propagated later by in vitro fertilisation. Since the germplasm is preserved outside the natural habitat, this is regarded as an advanced technique of ex-situ conservation.

Explanation: A national park protects species within their own natural habitat and is therefore in-situ, while a botanical garden maintains plants away from their natural habitat and is ex-situ. In the other three options the two terms have been interchanged – cryopreservation, seed banks and tissue culture are all ex-situ, whereas wildlife sanctuaries, national parks and sacred groves are all in-situ.

Explanation: In a seed bank, seeds of different genetic strains of commercially important plants are stored under controlled low temperature and humidity for very long periods, away from the natural habitat. This is therefore ex-situ conservation. National parks, wildlife sanctuaries and sacred groves are in-situ methods.

Explanation: In the IUCN Red List categories, a critically endangered taxon is one facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild in the immediate future. An endangered taxon faces a very high risk in the near future and a vulnerable taxon a high risk in the medium-term future.

Explanation: Sacred groves are tracts of forest set aside and given total protection on religious grounds. They are examples of in situ conservation of forests and wildlife, and are especially useful in conserving rare and threatened species — many endemic species that have become extinct elsewhere still flourish in them. They are found in the Khasi and Jaintia hills of Meghalaya, the Aravalli hills of Rajasthan, the Western Ghat regions of Karnataka and Maharashtra, and the Sarguja, Chanda and Bastar areas of Madhya Pradesh.

Explanation: Ranthambore National Park is situated in Rajasthan. It is one of the tiger reserves established in 1973 under the Project Tiger initiative of the Government of India.

Explanation: Kaziranga National Park, situated in the Golaghat and Nagaon districts of Assam, is associated with the rhinoceros and is world famous for the conservation of the one-horned rhinoceros of India.

Explanation: The Rann of Kutch, situated in Gujarat, is the only home of the Indian wild ass and provides protection mainly to it. Gir forest is famous for the Asiatic lion (not tiger), Kaziranga for the one-horned rhinoceros (not elephants), and musk deer is mainly protected in the Kedarnath sanctuary.

Explanation: MAB stands for the Man And Biosphere programme, formally launched by UNESCO in 1971. It is an interdisciplinary programme of research and training with emphasis on an ecological approach to the study of the inter-relationship between man and his environment; biosphere reserves were established under it.

Explanation: Species restricted to small areas are called endemic; approximately 29% of the dicot plants of the Himalayas are endemic. Sibling species are morphologically similar but reproductively isolated, sympatric species occupy the same geographical area and allopatric species occupy separate areas.