Butterflies look decorative, not essential. Losing them would ripple through pollination and food chains, though not through fungal disease.
🏛️ Must Know
What Really Happens If Butterflies Decline
- Pollination Suffers A huge fall in butterfly populations could genuinely disrupt pollination of plants that rely on them.
- No Fungal Link There is no established scientific link between butterfly decline and increased fungal infections in cultivated plants.
- Predators Lose Food Butterfly decline could reduce populations of wasps, spiders, and birds that depend on them as prey.
- Two of Three Hold Statements 1 and 3 are genuine consequences. Statement 2, the fungal claim, is not.
Good to Know
📘 Good to Know
Butterflies as an Ecosystem Indicator
- Sensitive to Change Butterflies react quickly to habitat and climate shifts, making their populations a useful early-warning indicator for ecologists.
- Real Documented Declines Recent research has documented rapid butterfly declines across parts of the world during the 21st century.
- Part of a Food Web Beyond adult butterflies, caterpillars themselves are a major food source for birds during breeding season.
📝 Previous Year Questions
UPSC CSP 2017 — Consequences of a Butterfly Population Fall
- UPSC 2017 A fall in butterfly populations could hurt pollination and reduce predator populations, but has no established fungal-infection link. See UPSC CSP 2017 GS Paper I, Q21. View this question.
Test Yourself
Great to Know
🌟 Great to Know
Why This Trap Question Works
- Plausible-Sounding Fiction The fungal-infection claim sounds scientifically plausible, which is exactly why it makes an effective distractor.
- Testing Real Ecology Getting this right requires knowing actual food-web relationships, not just recognizing generically ecological-sounding language.
- Connects to Other PYQ Facts Insect decline’s cascading effects link this question to broader pollinator-crisis and biodiversity-loss questions UPSC tests.
Beyond the answer
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