6.3 More About Extinction

Question 1

How could climate change affect the survival of an organism?

Answer 1

The organisms are well adapted for their climate, if the climate changes the organism couldn’t survive because there might be insufficient conditions for breeding or eating etc due to the fact it might be too cold/hot/wet/dry for a species and it reduces its food supply

Question 2

What is the biggest influence on species surviving?

Answer 2

Changes in the environment, especially climate change

Question 3

What does fossil evidence show about extinction?

Answer 3

There has been mass extinction on a global scale and many of the species died out over a period of several million years, which is very short in geological terms

Question 4

Name the 2 main reasons for mass global extinction

Answer 4

• the habitat the species lived in may be destroyed by catastrophic events
• the environment changed dramatically following a collision between a giant asteroid and earth

Question 5

Suggest 2 reasons why dinosaurs became extinct

Answer 5

• the collision of a giant asteroid caused huge fires, earthquakes, landslides and tsunamis. The dust which rose masked the sun causing darkness and lower temps, plants could not grow
• the extinction was slower process due to sea ice melting and cooling the sea temp by about 9*c, therefore there was less plankton which meant less food available

Question 6

Suggest another reason dinosaurs became extinct

Answer 6

A new disease was introduced into the population, unlikely that a new predator was introduced as dinosaurs were the top of the food chain