Insights Static Quiz -236, 2019–Environment

Solution: c)

Mangroves can restrict the opening of their stomata. Allows the mangrove to preserve fresh water, vital to survive in a saline environment.

– Able to turn their leaves to reduce exposure to the sunlight (reduces water loss as a result of evaporation)

– The pneumatophores allow the plant to breath, however also change in size to stop the intake of salt from the water.

–  Accumulation/ storage—in some mangroves, salt accumulates in selected parts of the plant, for example in some leaves, until it reaches a certain concentration. That part of the plant is then shed.

– Excretion— salt glands on the surface of their leaves, which release salt.

–  exclusion—the membranes in the root system of some mangroves filter the sea water, allowing water to pass into the plant, but excluding most of the salt. (ROOT SYSTEMS HAVE STRUCTURES TO EXCLUDE THE SALT)

Solution: c)

Main Causes of Land Degradation are:

            Deforestation

Excessive Use of Fertilizers and Pesticides

Overgrazing

Salination

Desertification

Soil erosion

Wasteland

Landslides

Over-Irrigation

Floods and Droughts

Practice of Jhum or shifting cultivation

Forest fires

Solution: c)

Itai-itai disease was the name given to the mass cadmium poisoning of Toyama Prefecture, Japan, starting around 1912.  Cadmium poisoning can also cause softening of the bones and kidney failure.

Minamata disease is a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning. Minamata disease was first discovered in Minamata city in Kumamoto prefecture, Japan, in 1956.

The most common cause of blue baby syndrome is water contaminated with nitrates.

Solution: a)

A “pyramid of numbers” shows graphically the population of each level in a food chain. Often, there are more producers than consumers, however, it can also be seen in many ecosystems that there are more primary consumers than producers.

A “pyramid of biomass” shows the relationship between biomass and trophic level by quantifying the biomass present at each trophic level of an energy community at a particular time. It is a graphical representation of biomass present in unit area in different tropic levels. The pyramid of biomass may be “inverted”. For example, in a pond ecosystem, the standing crop of phytoplankton, the major producers, at any given point will be lower than the mass of the heterotrophs, such as fish and insects.

A “pyramid of productivity”, showing the production or turnover (the rate at which energy or mass is transferred from one trophic level to the next) of biomass at each trophic level. Instead of showing a single snapshot in time, productivity pyramids show the flow of energy through the food chain. There are no inverted pyramids.

Solution: b)