MPSC 2022 Prelims Paper-I · Question 16 of 100

Correct — option (3). A biodiversity hot-spot is not simply a region with a great many species; it is a region that is exceptionally rich in species found nowhere else and is at the same time under severe threat, and the two conditions have to be met together. The criteria used since Norman Myers proposed the idea, and applied by Conservation International, are that the region must hold at least fifteen hundred species of endemic vascular plants and must have lost at least seventy per cent of its original primary vegetation. Four such regions extend into India — the Himalaya, Indo-Burma, the Western Ghats with Sri Lanka, and Sundaland, which reaches India in the Nicobar Islands — and of the four regions named in the options, north-eastern India is the one that answers to the description. It does so twice over, because the north-east lies within the Indo-Burma hot-spot and its northern hills fall within the Himalaya hot-spot as well. The reason for that richness is its position: the north-east is where the Indian, the Indo-Malayan and the Indo-Chinese biological regions meet, so plants and animals from three great assemblages occur together, and the sharp gradients of altitude and rainfall between the Brahmaputra valley and the eastern Himalaya multiply the habitats available in a small area. The region is also under pressure that fits the second half of the definition — forest clearance, shifting cultivation on shortened cycles, mining, road and dam building and the wildlife trade — which is precisely why it is classed as a hot-spot rather than merely as a rich region. Option (3) is the answer.

• (1)Northwestern India — North-western India is not a biodiversity hot-spot and is not a candidate for one. The region is dominated by the Thar desert and the arid and semi-arid tracts of Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana, and while its ecology is of great interest — the Great Indian Bustard, the blackbuck and the desert fox belong to it, and the Rann of Kachchh is the last home of the Indian wild ass — arid regions are by their nature poor in the number of endemic plant species that the hot-spot criterion requires. The distinction the question is testing is between a region that is ecologically important and a region that qualifies as a hot-spot, and they are not the same thing. Aridity limits both the total number of species and the concentration of endemics, so however valuable the desert ecosystems may be, they do not meet the test.
• (2)Deccan Plateau — The Deccan plateau is not recognised as a biodiversity hot-spot, and the option is offered because it lies next door to one. The plateau is a vast, ancient and relatively dry surface carrying deciduous forest, scrub and cultivated land, and while it holds important protected areas, its flora and fauna are widespread rather than narrowly endemic. The hot-spot on this side of the country is the chain of the Western Ghats, which forms the plateau's western edge and is a different thing from the plateau itself: the Ghats intercept the monsoon, carry evergreen and semi-evergreen forest, and have a level of endemism among plants, amphibians and fish that the plateau in their rain shadow does not approach. Confusing a hot-spot with the larger region beside it is the standard error in this family of questions.
• (4)Western India — Western India is the most tempting of the wrong options, because the Western Ghats are a recognised hot-spot and they do run along the western side of the peninsula. But the hot-spot is the Ghats themselves, a narrow chain of hills extending from the Tapi valley south through Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and continuing into Sri Lanka, and it is not the same as the broad region ordinarily called western India, most of which — the Gujarat plains, the Kachchh and Saurashtra peninsulas, the Rajasthan borderlands — lies outside it. The option asks the candidate to accept a macro-region in place of the specific mountain chain that qualifies. When an option names a large region and the hot-spot within it is a much smaller and well-defined chain, the option is not a correct statement of where the hot-spot is.

The hot-spot concept was introduced to solve a practical problem in conservation: funds and effort are limited, so where should they be concentrated to save the greatest number of species from extinction ? The answer proposed was to identify regions that combine two properties — an exceptional concentration of endemic species, which means species that occur nowhere else and would be lost outright if the region were destroyed, and an exceptional degree of threat, measured by how much of the original vegetation has already gone. A region qualifies if it holds at least fifteen hundred endemic species of vascular plants and has lost at least seventy per cent of its primary vegetation, and about three dozen such regions are recognised across the world. Four of them reach India. The Himalaya hot-spot covers the mountain arc, including the eastern Himalaya of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh; the Indo-Burma hot-spot covers the north-eastern states beyond the Himalaya and extends into Myanmar and mainland South-East Asia; the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka form a hot-spot along the western edge of the peninsula; and Sundaland reaches Indian territory in the Nicobar Islands. India is separately counted among the world's seventeen megadiverse countries, a related but distinct designation that rests on the sheer number of species a country holds rather than on the combination of endemism and threat.

Environment and ecology now occupy a substantial share of every MPSC paper, and the hot-spot question is one of the most predictable items in the block. It is set either as a direct question of this kind, as a question asking how many hot-spots lie in India or which they are, or as a statement item on the criteria. The wrong options are built the same way each time: they name large, familiar regions that lie beside or around a genuine hot-spot, so that a candidate who has learnt the names without the boundaries can be drawn into accepting the neighbour for the thing itself. The defence is to learn each hot-spot as a defined area rather than as a direction — the Western Ghats rather than western India, the Indo-Burma region rather than eastern India — and to hold the two criteria in mind, since they explain why a region as ecologically valuable as the Thar is nonetheless not on the list. It is worth adding that the Western Ghats hot-spot runs through Maharashtra, which makes the whole topic doubly examinable for this Commission and links it to the state's own protected areas in the Sahyadri.

• A biodiversity hot-spot must satisfy two criteria together — at least fifteen hundred endemic species of vascular plants, and the loss of at least seventy per cent of its original primary vegetation.
• Four hot-spots extend into India: the Himalaya, Indo-Burma, the Western Ghats with Sri Lanka, and Sundaland, which reaches Indian territory in the Nicobar Islands.
• North-eastern India lies within the Indo-Burma hot-spot, and its northern hills fall within the Himalaya hot-spot as well, so the region is covered twice over.
• The richness of the north-east comes from its position at the meeting point of the Indian, Indo-Malayan and Indo-Chinese biological regions, and from the steep gradients of altitude and rainfall across it.
• The threats that qualify the region as a hot-spot include forest clearance, shifting cultivation on shortened cycles, mining, road and dam construction and the wildlife trade.

• Treating a hot-spot as merely a species-rich region, when the definition requires both a concentration of endemics and the loss of most of the original vegetation
• Accepting a broad region such as western India in place of the specific chain, the Western Ghats, that actually holds hot-spot status
• Confusing the Deccan plateau with the Western Ghats that form its western edge, when only the Ghats qualify
• Assuming that an ecologically important region such as the Thar must be a hot-spot, when arid regions rarely carry the number of endemic plants the criterion demands

Biodiversity hot-spots appear in MPSC papers as identification questions of this kind, as counting questions asking how many hot-spots occur in India, and as statement items testing the criteria or the boundaries. The Commission also sets the related designations in the same block — megadiverse countries, biosphere reserves, Ramsar sites and World Heritage natural sites — and expects a candidate to keep them apart, since each rests on a different test and a different authority. Because the Western Ghats hot-spot extends through Maharashtra, questions often turn towards the state's own share of it, its protected areas and the recommendations made for the ecology of the Ghats. A short note holding the four Indian hot-spots, the two criteria and one distinguishing feature of each region answers the whole family.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following pairs of conditions must a region satisfy to be recognised as a biodiversity hot-spot ?

  • (a)A large total number of species and a high rate of population growth
  • (b)At least 1,500 endemic vascular plant species and the loss of at least 70 per cent of its primary vegetation
  • (c)The presence of a national park and a biosphere reserve
  • (d)A tropical climate and an annual rainfall above 2,000 millimetres

  Answer(b) At least 1,500 endemic vascular plant species and the loss of at least 70 per cent of its primary vegetation — the two conditions are irreducible, since the concept is meant to identify places where a great many species found nowhere else are in immediate danger. A region that is rich but intact does not qualify, and neither does a region that is degraded but has few endemics.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Nicobar Islands form part of which biodiversity hot-spot ?

  • (a)Indo-Burma
  • (b)Himalaya
  • (c)Western Ghats and Sri Lanka
  • (d)Sundaland

  Answer(d) Sundaland — this hot-spot covers the islands of the Malay archipelago and reaches Indian territory only in the Nicobars, which is why it is the least remembered of the four Indian hot-spots. Indo-Burma covers the north-eastern states and mainland South-East Asia, the Himalaya hot-spot covers the mountain arc, and the Western Ghats hot-spot runs along the western edge of the peninsula into Sri Lanka.