Question

Claytonia virginica is a woodland spring herb with flowers that vary from white to pale pink to bright pink. Slugs prefer to eat pink-flowering over white-flowering plants (due to chemical differences between the two), and plants experiencing severe herbivory were more likely to die. The bees that pollinate this plant prefer also prefer pink to white flowers, so that Claytonia with pink flowers have greater relative fruit set (reproductive success) than Claytonia with white flowers. A researcher observes that the percentage of different flower colors remains stable in the study population from year to year. If the researcher removes all slugs from the study population, what would you expect to happen to the distribution of flower colors in the population over time?
A) The distribution of flower colors should not change.
B) The percentage of white flowers should increase over time.
C) The percentage of pink flowers should increase over time.
D) The distribution of flower colors should randomly fluctuate over time.

Answer 1

Answer:

C) The percentage of pink flowers should increase over time.

Explanation:

According to the given information, the plants with pink flowers are able to reproduce more but are also have higher rates of herbivores as the slugs preferably eat the pink-flowered plants.

If slugs are removed from the system, the plants with pink flowers would have an absolute reproductive advantage over the plants with white flowers. This would increase the frequency of plants with pink flowers as they exhibit reproductive success over the plants with white flowers.