ECOLOGY
ORGANISMS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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A new population can be established by a single individual in a relatively short period of time.
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All the members of a population are genetically very similar and less able to survive environmental changes.
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They are smaller than lizards that reproduce sexually.
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They are more likely to develop a variety of tail lengths.
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Detailed explanation-1: -Certain species of whiptail lizards have only female individuals and no males. These lizards reproduce asexually. What is one disadvantage of asexual reproduction for these lizards? All the members of a population are genetically very similar and less able to survive environmental changes.
Detailed explanation-2: -The disadvantage of asexual reproduction is that organisms do not receive a mix of traits from both parents. An organism that is born through asexual reproduction only has the DNA from the one parent. In fact, the offspring is genetically an exact copy of the parent.
Detailed explanation-3: -Those outlier liaisons gave whiptails robust heterozygosity, which has been preserved by the identical replication-essentially, cloning-that occurs in asexual reproduction. It’s a genetic-diversity advantage that today’s females still enjoy and propagate.