NEET BIOLOGY

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ECOLOGY

ECOSYSTEM

Question [CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
The dodo was a large, flightless bird that lived on the island of Mauritius, but became extinct in the late 1600s. Those individuals not hunted by humans were eaten by the rats, dogs and cats brought to the island by Portuguese seafarers. Recently scientists on the island noticed that an important native plant, the calvaria tree, was not germinating and that all living species were more than 300 years old. It seems that the dodo ate the fruit of the calvaria, and the digestive processes in the dodo affected the seeds so that they became able to sprout. The relationship between the calvaria and dodo is best described as:
A
parasitism
B
mutualism
C
commensalism
D
interspecism
Explanation: 

Detailed explanation-1: -Over-harvesting of the birds, combined with habitat loss and a losing competition with the newly introduced animals, was too much for the dodos to survive. The last dodo was killed in 1681, and the species was lost forever to extinction.

Detailed explanation-2: -dodo, (Raphus cucullatus), extinct flightless bird of Mauritius (an island of the Indian Ocean), one of the three species that constituted the family Raphidae, usually placed with pigeons in the order Columbiformes but sometimes separated as an order (Raphiformes).

Detailed explanation-3: -Animals native to the islands such as the dodo bird and giant tortoises had survived “repeated megadroughts” over several thousand years, but it was human activity that killed off the species for good, researchers said in a new study published in the journal Science.

Detailed explanation-4: -Some were killed by sailors looking for a change in diet, others by the rats, cats, pigs and monkeys the sailors brought with them. Or dodos may have gone hungry as the invaders cleared forests rich in fruits. Their extinction is likely due to complex phenomena of changing ecosystem and human behavior.

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