Habitat Loss & Fragmentation — NEET Biology
✅ Asked in NEET 2024Habitat loss and fragmentation: This is the most important cause driving animals and plants to extinction. The most dramatic examples of habitat loss come from tropical rain forests. Once covering more than 14 per cent of the earth's land surface, these rain forests now cover no more than 6 per cent. They are being destroyed fast. By the time you finish reading this chapter, 1000 more hectares of rain forest would have been lost. The Amazon rain forest (it is so huge that it is called the 'lungs of the planet') harbouring probably millions of species is being cut and cleared for cultivating soya beans or for conversion to grasslands for raising beef cattle. Besides total loss, the degradation of many habitats by pollution also threatens the survival of many species. When large habitats are broken up into small fragments due to various human activities, mammals and birds requiring large territories and certain animals with migratory habits are badly affected, leading to population declines.
NTA focuses on habitat loss as the PRIMARY driver of extinction, using rainforests as the key example (14% → 6% coverage). Students often confuse habitat loss with other conservation issues like pollution or poaching. The critical trap: NTA asks which is the MOST important cause—always choose habitat fragmentation/loss over others. Remember that when large habitats break into fragments, species needing large territories (like big mammals and migratory birds) face population decline. The Amazon example shows both total loss (deforestation for agriculture) and habitat degradation (pollution). This concept appears repeatedly because it directly links human activities to biodiversity loss, a core NEET theme.
This paragraph was tested 4 times in NEET.
Given below are two statements: (NEET 2024) Statement I: Rain forests, which used to cover more than 14% of the earth's land surface, are now reduced to 6%. Statement II: The Amazon rain forest has the greatest biodiversity on earth. Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Among ‘The Evil Quartet’, which one is considered the most important cause driving extinction of species? (NEET 2023)
Which of the following regions of the globe exhibits highest species diversity? (NEET 2020)
Which of the following is the most important cause of animals and plants being driven to extinction? (NEET 2016 Phase 1)
Through deep analysis of NEET and NTA, 88 of 90 questions from the NEET 2026 paper were matched straight from the MedicNEET Biology question bank.
88/90MedicNEET's Biology question bank is built from the same NCERT lines NTA picks repeatedly. Not random MCQs — questions crafted exactly like NTA crafts them.