Passage II

Heliconia metallica is a plant found in the understory of tropical rain forests. (The understory is the area below the forest canopy.) H. metallica flowers are normally pollinated by hummingbirds. The flowers can be self-pollinated (egg and pollen are from the same H. metallica plant) or cross-pollinated (egg and pollen are from different H. metallica plants). The following study was conducted to investigate the effects of different pollination treatments on fruit production and seed mass in a population of H. metallica.

Study

Before pollination could occur, the anthers (pollen-producing structures) were removed from each of 400 H. metallica flowers. Then, the flowers were covered with nylon bags to prevent the normal pollinators from pollinating the flowers. The covered flowers were divided equally into 4 groups (Groups 1-4), and each group received a different pollination treatment (see Table 1). Four weeks after the pollination treatments, the percent of flowers that produced fruit and the average mass per seed were determined for each group (see Figures 1 and 2, respectively).

Table and figures adapted from Matthias Schleuning et al., "Effects of Inbreeding, Outbreeding, and Supplemental Pollen on the Reproduction of a Hummingbird-pollinated Clonal Amazonian Herb." @2010 by The Author(s).

12. Do the results of the study indicate that the nylon bags successfully prevented the normal pollinators from pollinating the H. metallica flowers?

Answer and Explanation

Your Answer is

Correct Answer is G

Explanation

General knowledge questions.

The function of Nylon bags is to prevent other insect vectors or wind pollination, which will cause uncertain factors to the experiment;

It can be seen from figure 1 and figure 2 that there is no artificial pollination The Group 4 in the operation did not bear fruit, indicating that the nylon bags blocked the external factors very well, and insect-borne and wind-pollinated pollination did not occur