Biology

[Troll]

Sealed glass container with food and water sufficient to support life... into which are placed a single male & female fruit fly & container is kept at constant 20 degrees.

After 40 days there are:

38 Male fruit flies

42 female fruit flies

Give a reason for the discrepancy between M & F numbers

[Churchill]

Sealed glass container with food and water sufficient to support life... into which are placed a single male & female fruit fly & container is kept at constant 20 degrees.

After 40 days there are:

38 Male fruit flies

42 female fruit flies

Give a reason for the discrepancy between M & F numbers

4 of the females are lesbians?

[DimPrawn]

Sealed glass container with food and water sufficient to support life... into which are placed a single male & female fruit fly & container is kept at constant 20 degrees.

After 40 days there are:

38 Male fruit flies

42 female fruit flies

Give a reason for the discrepancy between M & F numbers

Males have a shorter lifespan than females.

[Churchill]

Males have a shorter lifespan than females.

He didn't mention morbidity!

[threaded]

Sealed glass container with food and water sufficient to support life... into which are placed a single male & female fruit fly & container is kept at constant 20 degrees.

After 40 days there are:

38 Male fruit flies

42 female fruit flies

Give a reason for the discrepancy between M & F numbers

Fruitfly sex is determined by environmental conditions during metamorphosis?

[Bod]

Give a reason for the discrepancy between M & F numbers

4 of the males died in flagrante delicto

[ControlG]

Sample is too small to draw any conclusions from the difference in numbers.

Leave for much longer and see what you get then.

[shelby68]

There were originally 42 male fruit flies as well but 4 of them got nagged to death by the female fruit flies......

[Troll]

It's actually a question in a O' Level paper I was helping sprog with - with my limited knowledge of genetics I would have expected a 50 /50 split - lower male lifespan sounds plausible, gender in the fruit fly is not affected by external influences - i.e. temperature & I agree the sample rate is very small.

Googling doesn't help except to highlight that Darwin pondered the same issues

The next question is where the temperature is increase to 25 degrees and the population goes up - which can be explained by shorter incubation periods

[threaded]

As temperature goes up the fruit fly population should go down as the flies will suffer heat-stress and the gestation period increases.

You'd think they'd ask questions related to reality.

I think they're talking of a different animal, a crocodile for example, not a fruit fly.

Stoopid questions.

threaded in "GIGO" mode.