Question

PLEASE HELP 60 POINTS!!! Many rain forest plants are prone to developing fungal infections on their leaves. Fungi can grow rapidly in moist environments, and a serious infection can kill plants. One rain forest plant species has a genetic variation that affects its leaf structure. The traits and the descriptions of the plant’s leaves are listed in the chart.
TRAIT A: wide-tip leaves Water runs onto the leaves and tends to pool in pockets at the tips.
TRAIT B: drip-tip leaves Leaves come to a sharp point, leading to thorough water drainage from the leaves.
TRAIT C: medium-tip leaves Leaves are narrower toward the tips, but don’t come to a full point. Most of the water drains from the leaves.

During natural selection, organisms with harmful traits are less likely to successfully reproduce than organisms with beneficial traits. Neutral traits don’t improve or hurt an organism’s chances for survival. So, they tend to persist in populations when environmental conditions are stable. If the environment changes, neutral traits could become harmful or beneficial depending on the situation.

In year 1, a population of rain forest plants has the following distribution: 50% have medium-tip leaves, 25% have wide-tip leaves, and 25% have drip-tip leaves. You will simulate three years of this population: year 1, year 5, and year 10. How will the trait distribution most likely change over this time?

Answer 1

The plants having wide tips (trait A) retain the moisture, which means they are more prone to infection. So, the number of plants having trait A would be the most affected among all, and their number will significantly decrease, or may become extinct.

The plants having drip tips (trait B) drains away all the moisture, which means, they are less prone to fungal infections. So, the plants having drip tips would be the more abundant as compared to other traits.

The plant having mid-tip (trait C) retains a little amount of moisture. So, the plants having mid tip may or may not be infected, so, they can also survive, but the survival rate would be less than the drip-tip plants.

So, it can be concluded that plant having trait B would be most abundant in future, and plants having trait B would be less than plant having trait B, and the plant having trait A would either be extinct or least present.