An organism has been discovered that appears to forego metabolizing phosphorous to instead metabolize arsenic.Phosphorous is essential to all living things.Why might this organism have evolved a way to metabolize arsenic in place of phosphorous?
A) Because they differentiated and randomly mutated a way to exploit a resource all other organisms were not consuming.
B) The organism experienced a bottleneck event.
C) The organism evolved in a harsh environment that selected for this biochemical mechanism.
D) It is a morphological trait that protects it from predators since many organisms will die if they eat arsenic.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The most likely explanation is that the organism evolved in an environment with a scarcity of phosphorous, or a high level of competition for this resource. In this environment, the ability to use arsenic may have provided a selective advantage, allowing the organism to survive and reproduce more successfully than other organisms that were reliant only on phosphorous. Over time, this trait became fixed in the population through natural selection. The other options (A, B and D) do not provide as convincing or likely explanations for this adaptation.

An Organism Has Been Discovered That Appears to Forego Metabolizing