A novel fungicide is introduced and widely applied to cereal crops. After five y

Question

A novel fungicide is introduced and widely applied to cereal crops. After five years, resistant genotypes of the fungal pathogen are detected at a frequency of about 1%; resistance is widely distributed across the pathogen's range. Within two years, these have become so common that the fungicide becomes worthless. Explain how this pattern can be explained by the basic features of natural selection. Include in your answer A brief description of what natural selection is. The conditions that must be met in order for natural selection to occur. How natural selection explains the scenario above.

Explanation / Answer

Natural selection is the phenomenon of selecting new traits by the species as an evolutionary adaptation to resist harsh environmental living conditions finally passing these traits from generation to generation via inheritance. In the above case, initially fungicide has induced proper eradication of fungal pathogen but this pathogen has acquired resistance to fungicide by expressing new traits via gene expression finally transferred these gees via mating or conjugation, transformation etc. This fungicide resistance genes have evolved as part of natural selection to resist fungicide, as an evolutionary adaptation. This evolution is mainly depends on the "environmental factors", mutations in the individual cellular genome or genetic drift within the fungal pathogen. Individuals often develop favorable traits via natural selection & genetic variations in the successive generations with evolution of new traits in the fungal pathogen as an evolutionary adaptation to attain adequate offspring fitness and to struggle for the existence.

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