Practice question · Sort into groups
Why are some species far more at risk than others? Sort each characteristic by whether it raises or lowers extinction risk.
Groups: Raises risk · Lowers risk
- A highly specialised diet
- A generalist diet
- A slow reproductive rate
- A short generation time
- A large geographic range
- A small geographic range
Hints
- Ask whether the trait leaves the species options when conditions change.
- Specialists and slow reproducers have fewer options than generalists.
Show the answer
Raises risk: A highly specialised diet, A small geographic range, A slow reproductive rate
Lowers risk: A generalist diet, A large geographic range, A short generation time
Why
Specialisation, small range and slow reproduction all remove options. Generalists with large ranges and fast generations can shift diet, move, or evolve quickly, which is why rats and gulls thrive while specialists decline.
Practise Global Change and the Future of Life
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Biology I is free to start.
More questions on Global Change and the Future of Life
- The background extinction rate is about 1 species per million species per year. If current rates are 500…
- Habitat loss is currently a larger driver of extinction than climate change.
- A population shifts its breeding season earlier in spring as mean temperatures rise, tracking warming…
- Match each driver of global change to its principal effect.
- Arrange these consequences in the order they typically follow from habitat fragmentation.