In: Biology
You decide to volunteer at a community garden and are assigned to tend six equally sized vegetable beds. Three of the beds contain only tomato plants, while the other three contain tomatoes as well as snow peas, bell peppers, cucumbers, okra, and broccoli. You work hard all summer and fall, tending the plants through insect attacks, diseases, and severe summer storms. You harvest vegetables every three days and start to notice a pattern. The mixed vegetable plots consistently produce 4 pecks (a unit of dry goods measurement) each at every harvest, while the tomato only plots produce between 1-6 pecks each at every harvest. The garden director notices the pattern as well, and knowing you are a biology student, she asks you for an explanation. What concept or hypothesis do you cite in your response?
a) The model of island biogeography
b) The diversity-stability hypothesis
c) The tolerance model
d) The species-productivity hypothesis
Can you please answer this with an explanation? thank you!!
Answer is b) The diversity-stability hypothesis.
The model of island biogeography explains the relationship between immigration and extinction of species to islands depending on their distance from the mainland or other species source and their size.
The diversity-stability hypothesis states that the community will be more stable and productive when there is more diversity. There is constancy of community production and community resilience to species loss.
The tolerance model explains the possible mechanism of succession where some species will prove themselves more tolerant of biological stresses that occur within their environment as succession proceeds.
The species productivity hypothesis explains how the productivity and diversity depends on the resource supply and producer biomass or richness of species.
Hence the best suitable answer is the diversity stability hypothesis as there is consistency in the produce from the mixed plot(4 pecks) when compared to the tomato only plots (1-6 pecks). The diversity in the plot helps in the better utilization of the available resources and helps in maintaining a consistant productivity.