Question

Bees with short tongues are able to obtain nectar from deep flowers by drilling holes in the base of the flower without visiting the top of the flower. This behavior does not kill the flower. In a particular environment, bees with short tongues replace bees with long tongues. Predict the effect on the proportion of plants with deep flowers in future generations. Justify your prediction.

Answer 1

Answer:

The proportion of plants with deep flowers in future generations will decrease and will be very low.

Explanation:

To analyze this, we need to keep in mind the pollination process and the following general ideas:

• Bees with long tongues can obtain nectar from deep flowers by visiting the top of them and extending their tongues to their bottom.
• During their visit to the flowers and their search for nectar, long-tongued bees transport pollen from flower to flower, favoring pollination.
• Bees with short tongues can obtain nectar from deep flowers by drilling holes in their base without visiting their tops.
• Short-tongued bees do not need to access the nectar by the top of the flower. They do not get in contact with stamens, so they do not play a pollinator roll.
• In a particular environment, bees with short tongues replace bees with long tongues.

In this particular environment, long-tongued bees used to visit plants with deep flowers to get their nectar. They used to get in contact with mature stamens and carry the pollen on their bodies to the next flower. During this process, long-tongued bees were able to ensure pollination and helped to keep a high reproductive rate of plants with deep flowers.

When shorted-tongue bees arrived at this environment, they were able to replace long-tongued bees. They also looked for the nectar of deep flowers, but instead of visiting them from the top, they were adapted to obtain nectar by drilling holes in the flower base. In this way, they missed the contact with mature stamens and pollen.

Long-tongued bees disappear, and short-tongued bees did not play a role in the pollination process of deep flowers, then the reproductive rate of these vegetable species probably started to decline.

Probably, with time, the proportion of plants with deep flowers in an environment dominated by short-tongued bees will be very low.