Numerical answer
Five sentences are given below, numbered 1 to 5. Four of them, when arranged in a specific order, form a coherent and cohesive paragraph. Identify the one sentence that does NOT fit with the rest.
1. Coral reefs occupy less than one percent of the ocean floor yet host roughly a quarter of all known marine species, a density of biodiversity matched by almost no other ecosystem on Earth.
2. This concentration arises largely from the reef's physical structure, whose crevices, overhangs and branching forms create thousands of distinct microhabitats within a small area.
3. Freshwater lakes, by contrast, tend to support far fewer species per unit area, since their relatively uniform basins offer fewer such structural niches.
4. Many coastal communities depend on reef fisheries for a significant share of their protein intake, a dependency that is rarely reflected in national economic statistics.
5. Each microhabitat can support species with slightly different requirements for light, shelter or feeding position, allowing many species to coexist without directly competing for the same resources.
1. Coral reefs occupy less than one percent of the ocean floor yet host roughly a quarter of all known marine species, a density of biodiversity matched by almost no other ecosystem on Earth.
2. This concentration arises largely from the reef's physical structure, whose crevices, overhangs and branching forms create thousands of distinct microhabitats within a small area.
3. Freshwater lakes, by contrast, tend to support far fewer species per unit area, since their relatively uniform basins offer fewer such structural niches.
4. Many coastal communities depend on reef fisheries for a significant share of their protein intake, a dependency that is rarely reflected in national economic statistics.
5. Each microhabitat can support species with slightly different requirements for light, shelter or feeding position, allowing many species to coexist without directly competing for the same resources.
Show answer and solution
Answer: 4
Sentences 1, 2, 5 and 3 form a tight causal chain about WHY reefs host such biodiversity: reef structure (2) creates microhabitats (2, 5) that let many species coexist, contrasted with the lower structural diversity of lakes (3). Sentence 4 shifts topic entirely, to the economic/dietary dependence of coastal communities on reef fisheries — a genuinely true but unrelated fact that does not belong to the paragraph's structural-biodiversity argument. Hence sentence 4 is the odd one out.
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