How is biodiversity impacted by palm oil plantations?Palm oil plantations provide habitats to several species, so they do not cause habitat fragmentation. Palm oil plantations have fewer habitats, niches, trophic levels, and communities, resulting in a weak ecosystem. Without global extinction, species extirpation has little impact on its ecosystem in palm oil plantations. Removal of predators in palm oil plantations promotes survival of other species and therefore species diversity. In palm oil plantations, only one tree species and few canopy plants are allowed to grow.

Palm oil plantations have lesser habitats, communities, trophic levels, and niches that result in weak ecosystems.  

Explanation:

Oil palm plantation is a crop that is high in demand for the extraction of palm oil used for various purposes like the formation of soaps, cleaning products, washing powder, and production of food products.  

Oil palm plantation is mainly responsible for deforestation, pollution, and habitat fragmentation. Trees are grown at a particular distance and neighboring other species are removed so that the palm trees receive the nutrients from the soil and it will also facilitate easy harvest. Only one tree species is palm tree allowed to grow and other species are restricted as they can mask the sunlight by their canopy making it unavailable for oil palm plants.  

Thus due to habitat fragmentation involving discontinuity in an organism's preferred environment of survival fewer habitats of species can be found as few species which can inhabit the oil palm plants can survive, and the ecosystem becomes weak. As the species are interdependent on each other for food needs. The low number of plant species will reduce the population of faunal species from the location. The functional roles or niches are affected by species, the whole biotic community or ecosystem gets disturbed. This will reduce the population of the species and reduce the overall biodiversity of a region.  

d. groundwater flows through the subsoil and deposits minerals.