Adaptations
One of the rapid evolutions we learned about was the crop pests becoming resistant to insecticides over a 50 year time period.
At the start of the use of insecticides in 1940, there were no crop pests that were resistant to it. Meaning that it killed almost all the pests that it was sprayed for.
One would think that if there were no crop pests resistant to it at the start that it would be a great solution and continue to work.
That did not turn out to be the case. In 1950 there were some crop pest species that were resistant to the insecticides. This means while a majority of the crop pest species were still killed by the insecticides, some survived.
These survivors were then able to pass on the genes that allowed them to be resistant to the insecticide to their offspring.
This same process would continue to happen every time the crop pest species reproduced. Meaning over the next 40 years the crop pest species would have a larger and larger population that had become resistant to the insecticides.
Hey Hayley!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved the images and figures you included in your blog post this week. Made everything much clearer and easy to understand. Weird to think how smart bugs are and how gradually over time they can become resistant to things, Overall a fantastic job!!!
Hey Hayley, I think you did a really good job illustrating the crop pesticides in different decades. It is very apparent the hard work you put in to making your blog post.
ReplyDeletePeyton