Assertion: Amazon forest is estimated to produce 30 per cent of the total oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere.
Reason: Amazon forest produces oxygen through photosynthesis.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Assertion is false and reason is true.
Forests give us “ecosystem services”, benefits that nature provides free. One of them is oxygen, released by plants in photosynthesis. The huge Amazon rain forest is a large source of this oxygen.
Assertion: Amazon forest is estimated to produce 30 per cent of the total oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere. — False. The book gives the figure as 20 per cent, not 30 per cent. A wrong number makes the statement false.
Reason: Amazon forest produces oxygen through photosynthesis. — True. Green plants release oxygen during photosynthesis, and the Amazon forest produces its oxygen in this way.
NCERT Extract:
Why Should We Conserve Biodiversity? – “… The broadly utilitarian argument says that biodiversity plays a major role in many ecosystem services that nature provides. The fast-dwindling Amazon forest is estimated to produce, through photosynthesis, 20 per cent of the total oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere. … Pollination (without which plants cannot give us fruits or seeds) is another service, ecosystems provide through pollinators layer – bees, bumblebees, birds and bats.”