- A. The home range of elephants needs to be a vast area of rich biodiversity.
- B. Elephants are the keystone species and they benefit the biodiversity.
- C. Rich biodiversity cannot be maintained in the forests without the presence of elephants.
- D. Elephants are capable of regenerating forests with species as per their requirement.
Answer: B
Explanation
The passage details numerous ways elephants significantly impact and shape their ecosystem: creating clearings, preventing overgrowth, aiding seed dispersal, enriching soil with dung, and providing water sources during droughts. These actions demonstrate that elephants play a critical and disproportionately large role in maintaining the structure and health of their environment, which is the definition of a keystone species. Their activities directly benefit the overall biodiversity of the ecosystem. Option A is not directly inferred. Option C is an extreme statement (‘cannot be maintained’) not fully supported. Option D misrepresents their ecological role as being ‘as per their requirement’ rather than a natural, often involuntary, process.