- PowerScore Staff
- Posts: 1419
- Joined: Dec 15, 2011
- Thu Feb 03, 2022 6:26 pm
#93634
Hi Emily,
Generally, humans haven't really been colonizing islands long enough to have impacted the evolution of plants. So we would expect when humans arrive on the island with the large mammals that the extinction rate of the plants will rise. They haven't had enough time to adapt to the large land mammals like the mainland plants have. It generally takes a LOT of generations for evolution to do it's work---on average about one million years for lasting change in a species.
You don't need any of the specialized knowledge though. The stimulus says that in the last thousand years, biologists have seen plants on island go extinct at a much faster rate. They think they cause is large mammals. Our correct answer supports that cause, by showing when the cause occurs (introduction of large mammals) the effect occurs (faster extinction rate of plants). Answer choice (D) is a strengthen answer because it's consistent with the causal relationship in the stimulus.
Hope that helps!
Generally, humans haven't really been colonizing islands long enough to have impacted the evolution of plants. So we would expect when humans arrive on the island with the large mammals that the extinction rate of the plants will rise. They haven't had enough time to adapt to the large land mammals like the mainland plants have. It generally takes a LOT of generations for evolution to do it's work---on average about one million years for lasting change in a species.
You don't need any of the specialized knowledge though. The stimulus says that in the last thousand years, biologists have seen plants on island go extinct at a much faster rate. They think they cause is large mammals. Our correct answer supports that cause, by showing when the cause occurs (introduction of large mammals) the effect occurs (faster extinction rate of plants). Answer choice (D) is a strengthen answer because it's consistent with the causal relationship in the stimulus.
Hope that helps!