Question

Statement I: Biodiversity loss is now one of the world's most pressing crisis.
Statement II: Lower diversity in a species leads to non-uniformity.
Choose the correct option from below.

• A. Both Statements I and II are true and Statement II is a correct explanation of Statement I.
• B. Both Statements I and II are true but Statement II is not a correct explanation of Statement I.
• C. Statement I is true but Statement II is false.
• D. Statement I is false but Statement II is true.

Answer 1

Answer: (C)

The occurrence of different kinds of organism reflects the biological diversity. The term biodiversity refers to the totality of genes, species and ecosystem of a region. The living world abounds with enormous biodiversity. Biologically-rich and unique habitat are being destroyed, fragmented, and degraded due to problems caused by increasing human population resource consumption and pollution. Biodiversity loss is now one of the world's most pressing crisis. The primary reason for the concern is the realisation that biological diversity is being lost even before its size is known. Loss of biodiversity would check the evolutionary capability of biota to cope up with environmental changes. How to check the loss of species and erosion of gene pool is one of the major challenges to science. Biodiversity includes three hierarchial levels- Genetic Diversity, Species Diversity and Community and Ecosystem Diversity.
Genetic diversity refers to the variation of genes within species. It enables a population to adapt to its environment and to respond to natural selection. If a species has more genetic diversity, it can adapt better to the changed environmental conditions. Lower diversity in a species leads to uniformity, as is the case with large monocultures of genetically similar crop plants. This has advantage when increased crop production is a consideration, but can be a problem when an insect or a fungal disease attacks the field and poses a threat to the whole crop.