QUESTION 1 Once upon a time there was a forest in which there were 15 trees of o

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QUESTION 1 Once upon a time there was a forest in which there were 15 trees of one particular species in a cluster; each tree was near another of the same species. All of these trees were in their fourth year of growth and all had been exposed to exactly the same environment ? same dirt, rain, sunlight, nutrients, etc. A plant biologist examined the thickness of the phloem in each tree and found that all but one of the fourteen trees had a phloem layer 2cm thick. A single tree had a phloem layer 12 cm thick. Upon further examination the biologist found that the four layers of xylem of this one odd tree were each significantly thinner than the xylem layers of the other 14 trees. Hypothesize in a sentence why this one tree could have produced an abnormally thick phloem layer along with thinner than normal xylem layers. Defend your hypothesis!

Explanation / Answer

The abnormal thickness in phloem and thinner than normal xylem can be attributed to abnormal differentiation of vascular tissue their secondary growth. In Dicots the xylem surrounds the phloem.The abnormal phloem and xylem thickness may be possible due to a mutation in cells forming the phloem which proliferate to form numerous phloem cells that contribute for the dense phloem tissue, pushing and compressing the xylem cell layers.This results in thickness in phloem and thinner xylem.

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