Some monkey flowers (Mimulus guttatus) living near the sites of copper mines can grow in soil containing high concentrations of copper, which is toxic to most plants. Copper tolerance is a heritable trait.

Select the three statements that are true.

(A) Copper contamination in the soil created copper-tolerant plants.

(B) Nearly 100% of monkey flowers growing in copper-contaminated soil are copper tolerant.

(C) The population that existed before mining must have included both copper-tolerant and copper-intolerant plants.

(D) If you were to test monkey flowers growing on the shore of the lake, you would expect nearly 100% of them to be copper tolerant.

(E) Natural selection favors copper tolerance in all soils near the old mine, not only in the contaminated soils.

(F) Copper-tolerant plants are found only in contaminated soils.

Question

Jimena Higgins

Biology

6 October, 05:51

Some monkey flowers (Mimulus guttatus) living near the sites of copper mines can grow in soil containing high concentrations of copper, which is toxic to most plants. Copper tolerance is a heritable trait.

Select the three statements that are true.

(A) Copper contamination in the soil created copper-tolerant plants.

(B) Nearly 100% of monkey flowers growing in copper-contaminated soil are copper tolerant.

(C) The population that existed before mining must have included both copper-tolerant and copper-intolerant plants.

(D) If you were to test monkey flowers growing on the shore of the lake, you would expect nearly 100% of them to be copper tolerant.

(E) Natural selection favors copper tolerance in all soils near the old mine, not only in the contaminated soils.

(F) Copper-tolerant plants are found only in contaminated soils.

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Answers (1)

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Iyana Moss · Answer 1

(B) Nearly 100% of monkey flowers growing in copper-contaminated soil are copper tolerant.

(C) The population that existed before mining must have included both copper-tolerant and copper-intolerant plants.

(D) If you were to test monkey flowers growing on the shore of the lake, you would expect nearly 100% of them to be copper tolerant.

Explanation:

As you can see by reading the question above, high concentrations of copper are toxic to plants that cannot survive in soils containing too much copper. However, monkey flowers have evolved and exhibit resistance to this toxicity, managing to survive in soils with high copper concentration. This was because, in earlier times, the monkey flower population had copper-resistant and non-copper-resistant plants, but by natural selection, the non-copper-resistant plants eventually died, allowing the copper-resistant plants to survive and pass. This is characteristic of their descendants, thus forming a population of almost 100% of copper resistant plants.

With this, we can conclude that:

Nearly 100% of monkey flowers growing in copper-contaminated soil are copper tolerant. The population that existed before mining must have included both copper-tolerant and copper-intolerant plants. If you were to test monkey flowers growing on the shore of the lake, you would expect nearly 100% of them to be copper tolerant.