The statement that best describes the two species depicted in the graph is option C) Species A is a predator and species B is its prey.
Option A indicates that species A is a producer and species B is its consumer. This means that species B requires the output from species A to survive. Knowing this, we would expect to show that species B increases in population as the population of A increases, due to increased food supply, the graph shows the opposite scenario. Thus, option A is false.
Option B states that perhaps Species A is a host and species B is its parasite. This provides the same conditions and dependencies as option a, so for the same reasons that a is false, we can conclude that option B is false as well.
The final incorrect option is D, Species A is a scavenger and species B is its decomposer. This would mean that as the population of species B dies off, it increases the food supply of Species A which feeds on the decomposing members of species B. We would expect in this case, that species A would flourish as B dies off, however, we see that as species B dies, species A follows shortly after. This tells us that option D is incorrect.
The correct option is C, Species A is a predator and species B is its prey. This would mean that species A consumes the members of species B to survive. Therefore we would expect to see
- Species B thrive as the population of A remains low
- Followed by the steep decline of species B's population as more predators begin to appear.
- Once the population of species B reaches a critical point, species A will not have enough food supply to sustain its population, and both populations would decline.
This is exactly what the graph depicts, so option C is correct.
For more information on predator and prey interactions see:
https://brainly.com/question/2432570?referrer=searchResults
