<u>Answer</u>: c. a and b
Trees play vital roles in the production of oxygen as well as the fixation of carbon from
. As trees use nitrogen, phosphorus and water as nutrients for growth, their diminishing numbers would change the balance between these three elements significantly.
Thus, during rains, the water level will rise much faster and higher in the absence of trees. These could possibly lead to increasing cases of devastating landslides.
Answer:
It's important for a scientist to try to hold all variables constant except for the independent variable. If a control variable changes during an experiment, it may invalidate the correlation between the dependent and independent variable. When possible, control variables should be identified, measured, and recorded.
They help each other survive in the ocean. The fish help the sea anemone more though.
Answer:
Bridgham et al. (2006) showed that the interaction between a steroid hormone (aldosterone-M) and its receptor (mineralocorticoid) evolved by Darwinian gradualism. In this work, the authors demonstrated a primitive affinity between the hormone and its receptor that was initially present in chemically similar but more ancient ligands. This result has implications in understanding the association between gene duplication and the evolution of hormone signaling pathways. For example, in invertebrates, this work reinforces the importance of gene duplication in the existing interaction between paralogous glucocorticoid receptors and their receptor mineralocorticoid genes that were derived from duplication (Thornton 2001).
The publications above cited are the following:
J.T. Bridgham, S.M. Carroll, and J.W. Thornton (2006). Evolution of hormone-receptor complexity by molecular exploitation. Science, 312(5770), 97-101.
JW Thornton. Evolution of vertebrate steroid receptors from an ancestral estrogen receptor by ligand exploitation and serial genome expansions, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (PNAS), 2001, vol. 98 10 (pg. 5671-5676).