Download clover leaf answer key 1 and 2

Answer Key – “I’m Looking Over a White-Striped Clover: A Case of Natural
Selection”
Part I
Exercise 1:
- Minnesota habitat: cold winters, warm summers, not many herbivores,
moderate precipitation
- North Carolina habitat: mild winters, hot summers, lots of rainfall, lots of
herbivores
Part II
Exercise 2:
a. The two gene products are stored in different parts of the cell so that it takes
an extra step to activate the cyanide. This way, only under certain conditions
will CN be produced.
b. One way active CN might be made is if an herbivore eats the leaf (which
would cause the cell membrane to burst, combining its contents with the
contents in the cytoplasm to produce CN). A second way could be if a plant
freezes then unfreezes, which would also cause the cell membrane to rupture,
and combine with the cytoplasm to produce active CN.
c. Clovers may produce cyanide as protection from herbivores so they don’t get
eaten as frequently. A possible disadvantage of this is that maybe if the
herbivores don’t eat them, their seeds won’t spread as much, so their
reproduction might be lower than plants that have their seeds spread far away.
d. Cyanide-producing clovers might produce striped leaves as a warning to
herbivores not to eat them because they are poisonous. If they had no stripe,
they’d get eaten more because animals wouldn’t know to stay away.
e. Snails eat clover with plain leaves (no stripe). Snails do not eat clover with
white stripes on the leaves (white stripe = warning sign = poisonous). Snails
will also stay away from (no teat) non-poisonous clover with a white stripe
painted on, because it resembles the poisonous clover.