In 1917, biologist A. G. Tansley performed a famous series of studies on two species of bedstraw, a plant that was used to stuff beds. In nature, heath bedstraw is confined to acidic soils, while slender bedstraw lives on calcareous soils. From one set of studies, Tansley knew that each species could exist on both types of soils. This led him to wonder if competition between the two species was responsible for their non-overlapping distributions. To answer this question, ?

To answer this question, which of the following is the best approach? Please Explain!!!

1) A transplantation experiment: Remove all heath bedstraw individuals from a small area and replace them with an equal number of slender bedstraw individuals.

2) An exclusion experiment: Remove and exclude all heath bedstraw individuals from a small area in the middle of its habitat and see if slender bedstraw moves in.

3) An exclusion experiment. Remove and exclude all heath bedstraw individuals from a large area adjoining slender bedstraw habitat and see if slender bedstraw moves in.

Option-1

Explanation:

A. G Tansley is known for performing the first experiment to study the type of competition interaction between the organism.

He observed that the two species of bedstraw plant from the same genus interact with each other in a competitive way. He observed that the heath bedstraw grows best in the acidic soil but slender bedstraw grows best in the calcareous soil.

When he tried to grow the tree together they competed with each other for the same resources and the heath bedstraw wins. This could be performed by growing the heath plants from the small area and growing the slender heath straw in that area. The plants will compete for the same resources and the experiment is known as the transplantation experiment.

Thus, Option-1 is the correct answer.