Human Impact on the Environment

What Human Impact on the Environment covers

Human Impact on the Environment is examined in Component 1, Energy for Life. It covers endangered species and extinction, conserving gene pools in the wild and in captivity, deforestation and overfishing, sustainability and informed decision making and planetary boundaries.

The 5 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Endangered species and extinctionEndangered species, five human activities that put species at risk of extinction and species endangered by overexploitation.Open →
• Conserving gene pools in the wild and in captivityGene pool, situ conservation and wildlife corridor.Open →
• Deforestation and overfishingThree reasons why tropical forest is cleared, three further ways of making forestry sustainable and conflict between production and conservation in forestry.Open →
• Sustainability and informed decision makingEcological footprint, why scientific evidence alone cannot settle an environmental policy and precautionary principle.Open →
• Planetary boundariesPlanetary boundary, safe operating space and nine planetary boundaries.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Human Impact on the Environment further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Precautionary principle vs Evidence-based policy

  Precautionary principle: acting before the measurements are complete where the harm could be irreversible. Evidence-based policy: it bases the decision on what the measurements currently establish.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is an endangered species?

   Model answer

   One whose numbers or range have fallen so far that it is likely to become extinct in the near future unless the causes of its decline are removed.

2. 2

   What is meant by extinction?

   Model answer

   The permanent loss of a species, which happens when its last surviving individual dies.

3. 3

   Name five human activities that put species at risk of extinction.

   Model answer

   Destruction of habitat, overexploitation by hunting or collecting, pollution, the introduction of species from elsewhere, and the changing of the climate.

4. 4

   Why is the destruction of habitat the commonest cause of species becoming endangered?

   Model answer

   Every species depends on its habitat for food, shelter and breeding sites, so clearing it removes all of these at once and leaves the population nowhere to go.

5. 5

   How does the fragmentation of a habitat endanger a species even where some habitat survives?

   Model answer

   The population is broken into small isolated groups between which individuals cannot move, so each is separately vulnerable to chance events and no group can be replenished from another.

6. 6

   Why is a very small population at particular genetic risk?

   Model answer

   Alleles are lost by chance, close relatives are forced to breed together, and the reduced variation leaves the population less able to adapt to any further change.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Human Impact on the Environment revision questions

What does Human Impact on the Environment cover in Eduqas A-Level Biology?

5 subtopics: endangered species and extinction, conserving gene pools in the wild and in captivity, deforestation and overfishing, sustainability and informed decision making and planetary boundaries. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Human Impact on the Environment organised?

By the Eduqas A400QS specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.