What were the major contributions of the H. M.S. Challenger to the study of oceanography? How did its expedition contribute to future studies of the ocean?

The H.M.S. Challenger embarked from Portsmouth, England on December 21, 1872 and changed the course of scientific history. Physicists, chemists, and biologists collaborated with expert navigators to map the sea. This interdisciplinary spirit has continued to the present day. During the 4 year journey, the voyages circumnavigated the globe, sounded the ocean bottom to a depth of 26,850 feet, found many new species, and provided collections for scores of biologists.

C. Wyville Thomson led the expedition but died of exhaustion from the journey, which ended on May 24, 1876. The Challenger had zig-zagged around the globe and had visited every continent, including Antarctica.

The reports of the Challenger expedition were supervised by Sir John Murray, whose biological conclusions were of great importance to the later development of marine biology. He concluded, for example, that the deep-sea fauna was not "ancient," in that it did not resemble the faunas found in ancient fossil deposits.

Explanation:

answer: decrease

a limiting factor is the one which decrease the abundance, distribution and causes extinction of the population of species in a ecosystem. here, predators including hawks, owls and snakes are the limiting factor for the population of mexican free tailed bat.   although bats are nocturnal animals as they forge for food at night these predators also may remain active during night which can decrease the population of the mexican free-tailed bats. also, these bats eat only one type of insects that are moths. the food can also be a limiting factor as all 400 members are dependent upon same type of food needs that are moths. the decrease in the moth population can cause decrease in population size of the mexican free-tailed bats.

therefore, the scenarios will most likely to decrease the population size of the mexican free-tailed bats.  

well, i believe that the answer is 2. : 3