SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 25 of 99

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 10 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Which branch of ecology deals with the characteristics of ancient environment and their relationship with ancient plants and animals?

(a)Demecology
(b)Mycology
(c)Ichthyology
(d)Paleoecology

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Read the prefix. Palaeo- means ancient, so paleoecology is the ecology of ancient environments and the plants and animals that lived in them.

It reconstructs those environments from what the rocks preserve — fossils, pollen grains, tree rings, lake and sea sediments — and asks how the organisms and their surroundings fitted together.

The stem's two words, ancient and ecology, are the name itself: option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Demecology — Demecology is population ecology — the study of a population of one species, its numbers, growth and structure. It carries no reference to the past.
(b)
Mycology — Mycology is the study of fungi, a branch defined by the organism it studies rather than by an environment or a time period.
(c)
Ichthyology — Ichthyology is the study of fishes, again an organism-based branch of zoology and not a division of ecology at all.

Concept

Ecology is usually taught as three levels, and the names follow the level.

Autecology studies a single organism or species, demecology a population, and synecology a whole community and its environment.

Paleoecology cuts across that ladder by changing the time frame instead of the level: it applies ecological questions to environments that no longer exist, using the fossil record as its evidence.

Palaeoecology is close to palaeontology but not the same. Palaeontology studies ancient life itself, while palaeoecology studies the relationship between that life and its environment.

Key facts

Paleoecology studies ancient environments and their relationship with the plants and animals of the time.
Its evidence comes from fossils, pollen, sediments and other preserved records.
Demecology is the ecology of populations, sitting between autecology (one species) and synecology (whole communities).
Mycology is the study of fungi and ichthyology the study of fishes.

Study next

Autecology, demecology and synecology as levels of ecological studyBranch names built from Greek roots: entomology, herpetology, ornithologyFossils and pollen analysis as evidence of past climates

Common traps

Equating paleoecology with paleontology.
Guessing from a familiar-sounding branch name instead of decoding the prefix.

The branch-name item is a vocabulary question in a science costume, decided entirely by the Greek root in front of the -logy.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.