Question

In studying the life history of an organism, we often discuss the concept of trade-offs because organisms are limited in the energy they can allocate to different functions. We covered trade-offs in both plants and animals. Give two examples of trade-offs (one in plants and one in animals). Describe the tradeoff you name and include a line-graph to show (graphically) what this trade-off would looks like.

Answer 1

Trade off means one trait cannot increase without the decrease of another ( or vice versa). Situation can arise beacuse of number of reasons, they can be biological or physical mechanism.

e.g the Y mechanism : says that for a particular amount of resource, it is impossible to maintain two traits at a time. Resource can be enegry, space etc.

Example in animals: In humans the weight of new born. A higher birth weight provides a higher chance of survival in the first few weeks, but babies that are too large have higher mortality rate. Hence there is a trade off between the birth weight and survival rate.

Example in plants: In order to protect itself fom herbivores plants can delay flowering and fruiting and may make association with the ants, or produce secondary metabolites to protect itself from the attack.

The graph specifies that as the herbivores keep on eating the leaves the plant inhibits it flowering and fruting.