Final answer:
The Columbian Exchange categories include people, plants, animals, and diseases. It was a substantial transfer following Columbus's 1492 voyage, profoundly affecting global diets, economies, populations, and cultures. The correct option is a) People, Plants, Animals, Diseases
Step-by-step explanation:
The Columbian Exchange Categories
The term Columbian Exchange refers to the widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas between the Americas, the Old World of Europe and Africa, and later Asia, following Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492.
The four categories of the Columbian Exchange are people, plants, animals, and diseases. This monumental exchange transformed diets, economies, and populations across the globe. For instance, the introduction of American crops like maize, potatoes, and cassava had substantial effects on population growth in Europe.
Conversely, European animals like cattle and pigs, as well as diseases such as smallpox, dramatically altered the societies and ecosystems of the New World.
One of the most significant impacts of the Columbian Exchange was seen through diseases. Diseases native to the Old World devastated indigenous populations in the Americas, who had no natural immunity to these novel illnesses.
The resulting population decline drastically reduced the number of native peoples and dramatically reshaped their societies.
Overall, the Columbian Exchange had both positive and negative effects, spurring an economic revolution and fundamentally changing trade patterns and the distribution of wealth, while also leading to cultural transformations and ecological impacts that continue to influence the world we live in today. The correct option is a) People, Plants, Animals, Diseases