Reason of fast speciation in present day crop plants is -
A
Mutation
B
Isolation
C
Polyploidy
D
Sexual Reproduction
The answer is C.
Solution
Polyploidy is the presence of more than two sets of chromosomes in a cell. A polyploid plant usually cannot produce fertile offspring when crossed with its parent species, so it is reproductively isolated at once. A new species can arise in a single generation. Many crop plants are polyploids, e.g. wheat (hexaploid, 6n), cotton, potato, banana and sugarcane. Polyploidy also gives larger plants, fruits and seeds. So the reason for fast speciation in present day crop plants is polyploidy.
ConceptInstant speciation by polyploidy
Evolution in past papers
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