B18: Biodiversity

Question 1

What is biodiversity?

Answer 1

The variety of different species on earth, or within an ecosystem

Question 2

What are the functions of biodiversity?

Answer 2

Makes ecosystems stable, helps make medicine and species help provide specific services like pollination

Question 3

What are results of the increase in human population?

Answer 3

Use up raw materials, deforestation and produce lots of waste

Question 4

What causes water pollution?

Answer 4

Sewage from homes, chemicals from farming and the industry can pollute lakes and rivers

Question 5

What causes land pollution?

Answer 5

Landfill and nuclear waste releasing toxic chemicals into the surrounding ecosystems

Question 6

What causes air pollution?

Answer 6

Releasing of fossil fuels and smoke from combustion

Question 7

How can biodiversity be improved?

Answer 7

Breeding programmes, for endangered species to reduce chance of extinction. Creating protective areas like coral reefs

Question 8

What is a problem with breeding programmes?

Answer 8

Unless original habitat is safe, endangered species population will decline

Question 9

How can humans reduce the impact of what they do that leads to a decrease in biodiversity?

Answer 9

Reduce harmful but necessary practices, like farming. This can be done by introducing hedgerows and field margins

Question 10

What are issues about protecting biodiversity?

Answer 10

It is expensive, in order to maintain current standard of living, the environment needs to be damaged, for example the use of fertilisers.

Question 11

How do hedgerows and field mines help increase biodiversity?

Answer 11

They provide extra habitats and food sources so that a range of species can survive

Question 12

How can the government help to reduce damage to biodiversity?

Answer 12

Set quotas/limits on harmful practices (e.g deforestation), prohibiting certain things and pay businesses for carrying out practices like planting hedgerows

Question 13

What 3 human activities have a positive impact on biodiversity?

Answer 13

Recycling waste, setting limits on CO2 emissions and creating marine protected areas

Question 14

Why do humans carry out deforestation?

Answer 14

It provides land for cattle and rice fields, as well as growing crops for biofuels

Question 15

How do humans reduce the availability of land?

Answer 15

Building, quarrying, dumping waste and farming

Question 16

What are 3 problems about deforestation?

Answer 16

Trees cannot photosynthesise, therefore more carbon dioxide will be in the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. Similarly burning releases all the carbon inside, and when cutting trees, the habitats that had high biodiversity are destroyed, reducing it

Question 17

What are problems about the use of peat bogs?

Answer 17

They are often drained, to be used as farmland. Water is removed, allowing oxygen to enter and microorganisms simultaneously, which releases the carbon and contributes to global warming.

Question 18

What are peat bogs useful for?

Answer 18

Compost, which required burning and therefore releases carbon dioxide

Question 19

What are 2 properties of peat bogs?

Answer 19

Acidic and waterlogged

Question 20

What are some consequences of global warming?

Answer 20

Droughts, hurricanes and floods would become more common and severe. Sea level rise is another

Question 21

How does sea level rise occur?

Answer 21

High temperatures will cause more ice to melt and as water warms up, it expands so volume increases.

Question 22

What is the general impact of climate change?

Answer 22

Species that were well adapted to their environment may no longer be able to survive

Question 23

What is the difference between climate and weather?

Answer 23

Weather is the short term atmospheric condition, but climate is the typical weather condition in an entire region for a long time

Question 24

Why are producers given their name?

Answer 24

Because they are able to photosynthesise to make their own food

Question 25

Why would you need get trophic levels above 5?

Answer 25

Because every time you go up a trophic level, energy is lost, so there isn’t enough to sustain organisms in a higher trophic level

Question 26

What percentage of energy in each trophic level gets passed on to the next?

Answer 26

10%

Question 27

What do the arrows in a food chain show?

Answer 27

The transfer of energy and biomass

Question 28

Why is only 10% of energy transferred?

Answer 28

Organisms don’t normally eat every part of the organism, the bits they eat may not be absorbed, like scales. Most nutrients absorbed are used to release energy for respiration, rather than growth, making them waste products

Question 29

What is food security?

Answer 29

When people are able to access enough safe and nutritious food to meet their requirements for a healthy life for the future also.

Question 30

What does sustainable mean?

Answer 30

Being able to meet the demands for food today without affecting the ability to meet demands in the future

Question 31

What factors are affecting food security?

Answer 31

Rising populations, more foods being transported, so more meat is consumed and new pests and pathogens can kill crops, as well as environmental changes leading to a decreases yield

Question 32

What factors have increased global food production?

Answer 32

Genetic modification, selective breeding, application of fertilisers and clearing forests for agriculture

Question 33

What does GMO involve?

Answer 33

The addition of a gene

Question 34

What have some crops been modified to do?

Answer 34

Be resistant to pests, to increase nutrients, increase yield and virus resistant