Plant species Z flowers in the early spring, before most other plant species in
ID: 36155 • Letter: P
Question
Plant species Z flowers in the early spring, before most other plant species in its local community begin flowering but at about the same time that many species of small insects become active (Z is known to be insect-pollinated). The flowers of Z provide both pollen (protein) and nectar (carbohydrates), and are pretty much the only sources at this time, so they are visited by all of the observed insect species to varying degrees. When given this information, a Biology 121 student remarked that the insects must comprise a guild, and that many of the insect species are likely to be redundant in terms of ecosystem function. We know from other examples that the student
Explanation / Answer
The relationship between insect species and plant charactertics must be further studied and taken detail of. Once this type of data is collected it must be used by applying computational model to study the rdundance of insect species. This is necessary because when we think about ecosystem then a model that recapitulates real-world behavior will offer insight into the mechanisms that operate in nature. Moreover, computational models allow rapid and widespread exploration that would be time-consuming, costly, and in some cases impractical to perform in nature. As such, computational models are well-positioned to speed up the process of scientific discovery by providing novel and informative predictions and insights into the properties of the systems being modeled.