Question

choosing a location
which location would be most suitable for you to conduct this experiment?
it seems that the crossbills have difficulty getting past some of their prey’s defenses– the pine tree’s cones. in this case study you’ll see if this difficulty in obtaining food will cause the predators–the crossbills–to change or develop new traits (over thousands of generations). your aim will be to find out if the crossbill population will develop new traits or modifications to break the pine tree’s defenses; or will the pine tree develop more defenses against the crossbill? find a location below where you can test your hypothesis.
what location allows you to study the effects crossbills and pine trees have on each other?
1
2
3
4
5

Explanation:

To study the interaction between crossbills and pine trees, we need an area without squirrels (since squirrels outcompete crossbills for pine cones, making it hard to observe crossbill - pine tree interactions). The grey areas (areas with only crossbills and pines, no squirrels) are suitable. Looking at the legend, area 3 is a grey area (as per the map's legend where grey areas have only crossbills and pines). Areas 1, 2, 5 are black (have squirrels), and area 4's description isn't matching the grey area criteria. So area 3 is the best location.

Answer:

3 (the location corresponding to the grey area with only crossbills and pines, no squirrels)