Text 1
Marine biologist Dr. Sarah Vance argues that the periodic shell-gaping behavior of intertidal mussels during low tide is a primary thermoregulatory response. By slightly parting their shells, mussels facilitate evaporative cooling, which prevents lethal tissue temperatures when exposed to direct sunlight. Vance points to laboratory trials where mussels prevented from gaping suffered significantly higher mortality rates under heat lamps than those permitted to gape.
Text 2
Ecologist Dr. Marcus Reyes acknowledges that gaping helps dissipate heat, but he contends that thermoregulation is secondary. Reyes's field observations show that gaping occurs just as frequently on cool, overcast days as on hot, sunny ones. He argues instead that gaping is primarily a respiratory strategy to maintain oxygen consumption during aerial exposure, and that evaporative cooling is an incidental benefit rather than the evolutionary driver of the behavior.
Based on the texts, how would Reyes (Text 2) most likely characterize Vance's (Text 1) explanation of shell-gaping?
- AIt accounts for gaping behavior observed on cool, overcast days but fails to explain why it occurs during hot, sunny conditions.
- It correctly identifies a physiological benefit of shell-gaping but mistakenly views this incidental effect as the behavior's primary evolutionary driver.Cevap
- CIt is entirely invalid because laboratory trials cannot replicate the natural temperature fluctuations of intertidal zones.
- DIt fails to consider that shell-gaping behavior primarily serves to protect mussels from predatory species during low tide.