Which of the following statements about predation is/are correct?

The correct answer is Option (4) → Both (1) and (2)

In predation, one organism eats another. Plants fix the energy of sunlight in food, and predation passes this energy on to herbivores and carnivores. Predators also keep prey populations under control, and this affects the whole community.

Option (1) Predation can be thought of as nature’s way of transferring the energy fixed by plants to higher trophic levels. — Correct statement, but it is only one of the correct points, so on its own it is not the answer. Energy fixed by plants moves up the food chain when herbivores eat plants and carnivores eat herbivores. The book calls predation nature’s way of doing this.

Option (2) Predators help in maintaining species diversity in a community by reducing the intensity of competition among competing prey species. — Correct statement, but it is only one of the correct points, so on its own it is not the answer. By eating the prey, predators stop any one prey species from taking over. When the starfish Pisaster was removed from an intertidal area, more than 10 invertebrate species became extinct within a year because of increased competition.

Option (3) Biological control methods adopted in agricultural pest control are based on the ability of the prey to regulate the predator population. — Incorrect. The roles are reversed. Biological control rests on the ability of the predator to regulate the prey (pest) population, as when a moth that feeds on cactus brought the prickly pear cactus under control in Australia.

NCERT Extract:
Population Interactions – “… You can think of predation as nature’s way of transferring to higher trophic levels the energy fixed by plants. … Biological control methods adopted in agricultural pest control are based on the ability of the predator to regulate prey population. Predators also help in maintaining species diversity in a community, by reducing the intensity of competition among competing prey species. In the rocky intertidal communities of the American Pacific Coast the starfish Pisaster is an important predator.”