Answer: b). Any animal susceptible to pesticides will die or suffer altered reproductive cycle.
Pesticides are biological or chemical substances that are added to the crop fields to control the growth of pests and hence, makes plants crops pest resistant. For consecutive seasons, farmers have exceeded their pesticide use. This will result in accumulation of large amount of pesticide inside the soil as only some of the minerals are taken up by the plants others remains inside the soil. Some of the pesticides shows action against particular target pests and does not cause harm to other species. But other are susceptible for insects as well animal species. Animals like rats, rodents , mice may eat these pesticides that smell attractive or they may eat other pests or animals which were poisoned by pesticides. Animals that are susceptible to these pests will die because of toxic effects of pesticides. Biomagnification is a phenomena in which toxic chemicals like pesticides gets accumulated in the food chain as one organism is fed by the other. Animals at higher trophic levels will be affected as they receive highest concentration of toxic substances from lower levels. Pesticides will affect the vital organs like reproductive organs in animals may induce hormonal changes, can make animals unfit for reproduction, decreases mating seasons, can make them completely sterile or unproductive, production of dead offsprings.