IUCN, Species - GS questions based on daily current affairs

ANSWER: Only 2

Explanation:

• The IUCN Council is the principal governing body of IUCN.
• The Council provides strategic direction for the activities of the Union, discusses specific policy issues and provides guidance on finance and the membership development of the Union.
• The Council is composed of the President, four Vice Presidents (elected by the Council from among its members), the Treasurer, the Chairs of IUCN's six Commissions, three Regional Councillors from each of IUCN's eight Statutory Regions and a Councillor from the State in which IUCN has its seat (Switzerland).
• IUCN's current President is Zhang Xinsheng.
• The Council appoints a Director General, who is responsible for the overall management of IUCN and the running of the Secretariat. Inger Andersen is IUCN Director General since January 2015. She succeeded Julia Marton-Lefèvre.

ANSWER: Both 1 and 2

Explanation:

• World Conservation Congress formerly was known as the IUCN General Assembly.
• The World Conservation Congress (Members’ Assembly) is IUCN’s highest decision-making body. The Congress convenes every four years, most recently in Jeju, South Korea, in 2012.
• It elects the Council, including the President, and approves IUCN’s work program and budget.
• This year in 2016, it is meeting at Hawai?i Convention Center, in the Hawaiian capital, Honolulu. It is being hosted by the State of Hawai?i with the support of the Department of State of the USA.

ANSWER: Plight of island nations due to rising seas

Explanation:

• The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s World Conservation Congress is held every four years in a different location around the globe.
• This year, the conference theme of "Planet at the Crossroads" is aimed at exposing the plight of island nations that are at risk of disappearing in the coming decades due to rising seas.
• Arguments are expected on hotly debated issues such as what to do about domestic ivory markets which lead to the killing of elephants for their tusks, and how to feed the world's growing population without exhausting its natural resources.

ANSWER: Plant

Explanation:

• Scientists at the Malabar Botanical Garden and Institute for Plant Sciences, Kozhikode, have taken up a mission to save an endangered aquatic plant facing extinction in its only known natural habitat in Periya village, Kasaragod.
• The plant, Crinum malabaricum and known locally as Kanthanga, is restricted to a population of approximately 1,000 along the shaded stretch of a seasonal stream running through the Periya village.
• The IUCN Red List of Species has classified C. malabaricum as critically endangered. According to IUCN, the trees lining the stream were being cut down for farming and access, pushing the aquatic plant to the verge of extinction.
• Endowed with large, flat, strap-shaped leaves, C. malabaricum resembles a water lily.

ANSWER: More than 200

Explanation:
World Wildlife Fund in a report on wildlife in Nepal, Bhutan, north of Myanmar, southern Tibet and NE India has indicated more than 200 new species have been discovered in fragile eastern Himalayas, including 133 plants 26 species of fish, 10 new amphibians, one reptile, one bird and one mammal. Most striking discoveries include the following:
- Walking snakehead fish
- Snub nosed monkey which sneezes when it rains
- Bejeweled lance headed pit viper

ANSWER: Only 1, 2 and 3

Explanation:
2, 4 and 5 are endangered species.

ANSWER: None of the above

Explanation:
Neutralism describes the relationship between two species which do interact but do not affect each other. Mutualism is a close association between two species in which both the species benefit. However, some mutualisms are so intimate that the interacting species can no longer live without each other as they depend totally on each other to survive. Such close associations are called symbiosis. Familiar example of symbiosis is seen in pollination of flowers where flowering plants are cross pollinated by the bees which benefit by getting nectar from the plants and both cannot survive without the other.

ANSWER: Both 1 and 2

Explanation:
Two humped camel or Bactrian camel are seen in remote regions of the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts of Mongolia and China, migrating from the desert to rivers in Siberia during winter. A small number of wild Bactrian camels still roam the Mangystau Province of southwest Kazakhstan and the Kashmir valley in India. Feral herds of Bactrian camels are found in Australia.