How people affect biodiversity

Grade 9 Science Worksheet - Building Confidence

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   One woodland over ten years (model data)

   cause	evidence
   land cleared for houses	30 hectares before, 12 hectares after
   a vine from another continent	covers 5 hectares of the ground
   a water test for a pesticide	none found

2. 1.

   Ari reads the woodland table. Which drivers of biodiversity loss have evidence here?

   • Habitat loss and an invasive species have evidence; pollution does not
   • Habitat loss alone, since 18 hectares is the largest change
   • An invasive species alone, since the vine is the one living cause
   • Habitat loss and pollution, since the three rows each name a driver

3. Direct drivers of change in nature, ranked by global impact so far (real data, IPBES 2019)

   rank	driver
   1	changes in land and sea use
   2	direct exploitation of organisms
   3	climate change
   4	pollution
   5	invasive alien species

4. 2.

   Bo reads the ranking. Which statement does the table support?

   • Invasive alien species rank first, since they spread the fastest
   • The top driver explains the loss, so drivers 2 to 5 can be set aside
   • Land and sea use changes have had the largest global impact so far; climate change ranks third
   • Climate change has had the largest global impact so far, since its warming reaches the whole planet

5. Two NOAA lists at the end of 2023 (real data, NOAA Fisheries, 2023)

   list	what puts a stock on it	stocks
   overfishing list	the catch rate is too high	21
   overfished list	the population is too small	47

6. 3.

   Esme reads the NOAA table. Which sentence matches it?

   • A stock can be too small, overfished, or caught too fast, subject to overfishing
   • An overfished stock is gone, so 47 stocks have disappeared
   • The two lists name the same 21 stocks, counted twice
   • Overfishing means the stock is too small, and overfished means the catch is too high

7. Wetlands since 1700 (real data, IPBES 2019)

   measure	value
   wetlands present in 1700 that were lost by 2000	more than 85%

8. 4.

   Jun reads the card. About how much of the 1700 wetland area was left in 2000?

   • Zero percent of it, since the wetlands were lost
   • Less than 15% of it
   • About half of it
   • More than 85% of it

9. Tests at four sites on a model stream (model data)

   site	water looks	pesticide level (parts per billion)	limit (parts per billion)
   site 1	clear	2	5
   site 2	cloudy	0	5
   site 3	clear	9	5
   site 4	cloudy	4	5

10. 5.

    Luz reads the table. Which sites go over the pesticide limit?

    • Sites 1 and 3: clear water hides pollution, so both are over
    • Only site 3: 9 is above the limit of 5, though the water looks clear
    • Site 4: 4 is the highest reading among the cloudy sites
    • Sites 2 and 4: cloudy water shows the pollution
11. 6.

    Noah reads the graph. About how far uphill did the highest plant move each decade, and what fits the pattern?

    • No shift, since the plant stayed near 800 m
    • About 4 m a decade, the rise each year
    • About 160 m a decade, the whole rise counted as if it happened in one decade
    • About 40 m a decade, fitting a range that shifts upslope as the air warms
12. 7.

    Pia reads the graph. What does it show about the pesticide level after the ban?

    • It fell by the same amount each year
    • It fell by 4 every 2 years and reached 0 by year 8
    • It halved every 2 years and was still above 0 at year 8
    • It reached 0 as soon as the ban began

13. The zebra mussel (real data, USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species)

    fact	entry
    native range	Black, Caspian and Azov Seas
    likely route to the Great Lakes	a cargo ship's ballast water
    found today in	all of the Great Lakes

14. 8.

    Ren reads the zebra mussel card. Which statement is supported?

    • It is invasive in the Black Sea, since it arrived there from the Great Lakes by ship
    • It is native to ships' ballast water, which carried it to the lakes
    • It is native to the Black, Caspian and Azov Seas and is invasive in the Great Lakes
    • It is native to the Great Lakes, since it is found in each of them today

15. Kudzu in the United States (real data, from OpenStax Biology 2e)

    fact	entry
    native to	Japan
    brought to the United States	1876
    later use	planted to protect soil
    area covered in the southeast	over 7 million acres

16. 9.

    Tala reads the kudzu card. Kudzu was planted on purpose to protect soil. Why is it called invasive?

    • It was brought in 1876, which is too long ago to be called invasive
    • It is native to the southeast, where it covers over 7 million acres
    • It is native to Japan and now spreads over more than 7 million acres of the southeast
    • A species counts as invasive if it arrives by accident, and kudzu was planted on purpose

17. Cane toads in Australia (real data, Australian Museum)

    fact	entry
    toads brought from Hawaii	about 100
    toads released in north Queensland in July 1935	more than 3,000
    reason for the release	to control cane beetles
    range since then	much of northern Australia

18. 10.

    Zee reads the cane toad card. Which statement does the card support?

    • The release controlled the beetles, so the toads stayed in the cane fields
    • More than 3,000 toads were brought from Hawaii in 1935
    • Cane toads are native to northern Australia, which is why they live across so much of it today
    • About 100 toads became 3,000 released in 1935, and the range now covers much of the north