Question

Which of the following statements is correct?
A. Species diversity in general increases from pole to the equator
B. Conventional taxonomic methods are equally suitable for higher plants and microorganisms
C. India’s share of global species diversity is about 18%
D. There are about 25000 species of plants in India

Answer 1

Hint: Biodiversity is simply variation between all living organisms. Biodiversity is kind of a reservoir of all the species, their ecosystems, ecological processes, and the collective gene pools. Till date, our earth holds from about 5 to 100 million species.

Complete answer:
Biodiversity is the variation between all the species whether it is terrestrial or aquatic. It measures the richness of all species present/ alive. The term biodiversity was first coined in the year 1985. It is important in all kinds of ecosystems. It deals with nature’s variety, the biosphere. It refers to variabilities among plants, animals, and microorganism species. Biodiversity includes the number of different organisms and their relative frequencies in every ecosystem. Biodiversity can be classified into three main categories, species diversity, genetic diversity, and ecosystem diversity.
Let’s discuss species diversity.
Species diversity refers to the variety of different types of species found in a particular area. It is the biodiversity at the ground level of organisms. It includes every species present in our world. We know that no two individuals of the same species are exactly similar. For example, humans show a lot of diversity among themselves. It is an example of species diversity. In general species, diversity increases from pole to equator, because tropical climate holds more species of both terrestrial and aquatic species than temperate and polar areas.
Let’s look at the other options. The conventional methods require long periods of growth, long periods for development, or are difficult to interpret so they cannot be equally applied to both plants and microorganisms.
When talking about the species diversity of India at a global level, India is one of the seventeen megadiverse countries in the world. With only 2.4% of the earth's land area, it accounts for 7-8 % of all the recorded species of the world. And also India includes 18000 species only of the flowering plants and in total it harbors more than 50000 plant species.
Hence, the correct answer is option (A).

Note: There are also other types of biodiversity. Genetic diversity is simply variations among the genetic resources of the organisms and ecosystem diversity is the diversity observed among the different ecosystems in a region.