The correct answer is (B) : Less variation from year-to-year.
The correct answer is: (B) Less variation from year-to-year.
David Tilman's long-term ecosystem experiments focused on understanding the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem stability. One of his key findings was that ecosystems with higher species diversity tend to exhibit less variation in total biomass from year to year compared to ecosystems with fewer species.
In these experiments, Tilman observed that plots with more species showed greater stability in biomass production over time. This means that ecosystems with diverse species are better able to maintain consistent productivity despite fluctuations in environmental conditions, such as droughts, pests, or other disturbances.
The greater stability in these diverse ecosystems is thought to result from the different roles played by each species, where some species are able to thrive under varying conditions while others may decline. This buffering effect helps reduce the overall variation in biomass over time, making ecosystems with higher species richness more resilient to disturbances.
| Column I | Column II | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Calotropis | p. | Invertebrates |
| 2. | Pisaster | q. | Distasteful |
| 3. | Monarch butterfly | r. | Cryptically colored |
| 4. | Frogs | s. | Cardioglycoside |
Match Column I and Column I
| Column I | Column II | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Narrowly utilitarian argument | p | Conserving biodiversity for major ecosystem services |
| 2 | Broadly utilitarian argument | q | Every species has an intrinsic value and moral duty to pass our biological legacy in good order to future generation. |
| 3 | Ethical argument | r | Receiving benefits like food, medicine & industrial products. |
| Column-I | Column-II | ||
| 1. | Standing state | p. | Mass of living material at a given time. |
| 2. | Pioneer species | q. | Amount of nutrients in the soil at a given time. |
| 3. | Detritivores | r. | Species that invade a bare area. |
| 4. | Standing crop | s. | Breakdown detritus into smaller particles. |