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Chemistry LibreTexts

12.05 Relevance of Evolution: Bed Bugs Bite Back!

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    Read the article, Bed bugs bite back thanks to evolution. Make sure you use all of the links and videos on the page to understand the article. 

    After reading the article answer the following questions. Use the submit button to turn in your completed work. 

    1. Review some background information on natural selection.
      Part 1 - Explain how a mutation causing resistance to pyrethroids would spread through a population of bed bugs that are being treated with the pesticide. Make sure to include the concepts of variation, selection, and inheritance in your explanation. 
      Part 2 - Which of the steps described (variation, selection, and/or inheritance) are affected by the prior exposure of bed bug populations to DDT? How are those steps or step affected?
      Part 3 - If bed bugs had never been exposed to DDT in the 1950s and 1960s, how would you expect that to affect bed bugs' evolution of resistance to pyrethroids in the last decade? Would it affect the rate of this evolution, and/or the geographic origins of this evolutionary process? Explain your reasoning.