Human Influences on the Environment Practice Questions

What is meant by the term biodiversity?

Explain why an ecosystem with a high biodiversity is usually more stable than an ecosystem with a low biodiversity.

Which of these is an indicator species for clean air?

A bloodworm

B sludgeworm

C bushy lichen

D crusty lichen

A gardener finds blackspot fungus on the rose leaves in a village garden, but there is no blackspot fungus on rose bushes growing beside a busy city road.

What does this suggest about the air beside the city road?

Name one species that indicates that the water in a stream is clean.

Give one way that the waste falling from the cages can reduce the biodiversity of the sea bed below.

Sea lice are parasites that live on the skin of salmon. Explain why sea lice in fish farms can reduce the population of wild salmon in the loch.

Describe how the percentage of the surface covered by algae and the concentration of dissolved oxygen changed between April and July.

Explain how spreading the fertiliser on the field caused the death of the fish in the pond.

What is meant by a non-indigenous species?

Explain how the harlequin ladybird could cause the population of the native 2-spot ladybird to decrease.

Suggest one reason why the harlequin ladybird spread so quickly after it was introduced.

Which site has the most polluted water? Give a reason for your answer, using the data in the table.

Explain what the results at site C suggest about the river 2 km downstream of the outflow.

Sludgeworms contain a large amount of haemoglobin. Suggest how this helps them to live at site B.

Give two reasons why it is important to maintain global biodiversity.

Explain why planting a mixture of native tree species increases biodiversity more than planting a single species of fast-growing tree.

Describe the pattern shown by the students' results.

An environmental scientist could instead use an electronic sensor to measure the concentration of sulfur dioxide in the air at each site.

Evaluate the use of lichens as indicator species, compared with using an electronic sensor, to assess air pollution in this city.

Calculate the percentage increase in the number of Amur leopards in the wild between 2000 and 2020.

Explain why leopards are moved between zoos to breed, rather than breeding with leopards in the same zoo.

Some conservationists argue that money would be better spent protecting the leopards' forest habitat than on captive breeding programmes. Give two reasons that support this argument.