Question at position 4 Examining the case of alfalfa pollination, what explains the ineffectiveness of honey bees compared to alkali bees? Alfalfa produces toxins that only affect honey beesHoney bees learn to avoid the "tripping" mechanism to access nectar without effective pollinationHoney bees lack sufficient colony strength Alkali bees produce more workers

Question

Question at position 4 Examining the case of alfalfa pollination, what explains the ineffectiveness of honey bees compared to alkali bees? Alfalfa produces toxins that only affect honey beesHoney bees learn to avoid the "tripping" mechanism to access nectar without effective pollinationHoney bees lack sufficient colony strength Alkali bees produce more workers

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Question restatement: In the case of alfalfa pollination, which explanation accounts for why honey bees are ineffective compared to alkali bees?

Option 1: 'Alfalfa produces toxins that only affect honey bees' — This would imply a toxic effect unique to honey bees, making them unable to pollinate. However, there is no widely accepted evidence that alfalfa toxins selectively disable honey bees while leaving alkali bees unaffected in the pollination context. This makes the claim biologically questionable as the sole explanation.

Option 2: 'Honey bees learn to avoid the "tripping" mechanism to access nectar without effective pollination' — Alfalfa flowers have a specialized tripping mechanism that releases nectar when a bee steps on a lever-like cue. Honey bees often engage in tripping and nectar extraction, but if they learn to avoid the mechanism that results in proper pollen transfer, their visits would be less effective for pollination. This option integrates behavior (learning avoidance) with a mechanism of pollination efficiency, aligning with observed differences in pollinator effectiveness between species.

Option 3: 'Honey bees lack sufficient colony strength' — While colony strength can influence foraging efficiency, the primary question concerns the comparative effectiveness of pollination per visit rather than sheer colony size. This option does not directly address the mechanism by which honey bees are less effective at pollinating alfalfa compared to alkali bees, making it a weaker explanation.

Option 4: 'Alkali bees produce more workers' — This posits a difference in caste or worker production that would affect pollination outcomes. However, the number of workers per se does not explain why alkali bees are more effective pollinators for alfalfa; pollination efficiency is more about behavior and morphology during flower visits than just worker数量. Therefore, this option is not a direct, mechanism-based explanation.

Reasoning synthesis: The core issue is why honey bees are less effective pollinators of alfalfa relative to alkali bees. Among the options, the most mechanism-focused explanation ties honey bees’ behavioral adaptation (or misbehavior) to the specific flower’s tripping system, suggesting that honey bees may learn to avoid or not properly trigger the tripping mechanism that leads to efficient pollen transfer. This accounts for differential pollination success based on learned behavior and interaction with flower morphology, rather than attributing it solely to toxin exposure, colony size, or worker numbers.

Note: When evaluating multiple choices, it helps to connect the biology of the flower (alfalfa’s tripping mechanism) with pollinator behavior (honey bees’ learning or lack thereof) to explain observed differences in pollination effectiveness between species.

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