Suppose the individuals making up a population of tree frogs came in a
variety of colors.
How does this type of diversity most likely affect the tree frog population?

A. This type of diversity means that fewer individuals will survive if
the environment changes.

B. The colors help the frogs recognize and communicate with one
another.

C. The frogs exhibiting different colors must compete fiercely with
one another for resources.

D. The frogs are well adapted to different niches, minimizing
competition

Experiments in environmental toxicology can sometimes be manipulative experiments in which the researcher actively chooses and manipulates the independent variable. in hunt's study, for example, dosages of bpa were manipulated and the effects were measured. in manipulative studies, the researcher controls all the other variables in the experiment, so any health effects observed in the test subjects can be attributed to differences in the independent variable. in other cases, researchers use natural experiments in which the dependent variable (typically a measure of organism health) is measured under differing contexts that are not manipulated. say, for example, that an accidental chemical spill contaminates five ponds. to determine the possible effects of the toxic chemical on frogs, a researcher could compare the hatching rate of frog eggs laid in those five ponds to the hatching rate of eggs laid in five uncontaminated ponds nearby. this would be an example of a natural experiment because concentrations of the toxic chemical in the ponds were not controlled by the experimenter, but rather resulted from the chemical spill. drag type of experiment on the left to the example of experiment on the right. blood concentrations of bpa in college students are compared to their recent manipulative consumption of canned food items 2. the feeding behavior of fish in streams that receive acidic runoff from strip mines is compared to the feeding behavior of fish in unaffected streams. the deformity rate in baby birds from nests in pesticide-sprayed fields is compared to the deformity rate in birds from nests in unsprayed fields 4 tumor development is compared in mice exposed to five dosages of a known carcinogen in the laboratory foraging activity levels are compared in tadpoles exposed to four concentrations of toxic metals in the laboratory. growth of corn plants is compared in field plots sprayed with three different dosage: s of weed killer 7 bpa concentrations in the urine of people with diabetes are compared to bpa concentrations in the urine of people without diabetes - natural; manipulative

Bisphenol a (often called bpa) is a chemical found in products that people use every day, from water bottles to food containers to children's toys. unfortunately, bpa leaches out of its many products and makes its way into our bodies. what are the health effects of bpa exposure? ongoing research is finding that elevated exposure to bpa can affect a wide variety of developmental and physiological processes, but one of the first studies of bpa's health effects came about because of a simple mistake in the lab. at a laboratory at case western reserve university in 1998, geneticist patricia hunt was making a routine check of her female lab mice. as she extracted and examined developing eggs from the ovaries, she began to wonder what had gone wrong. she noticed that many of the eggs showed problems with their chromosomes, and some had irregular amounts of genetic material, which can lead to miscarriages and birth defects in mammals. she learned that a lab assistant had mistakenly washed the plastic mouse cages and water bottles with a harsh soap, releasing bpa from the plastic. knowing that bpa is an endocrine disruptor, a chemical that can enter organisms and mimic hormones, hunt set out to discover whether it had adversely affected her mice.

Why is it incorrect to say that mitochondria function only as energy factories with cell