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The pea aphid, a type of insect, contains light-capturing pigments in its exoskeleton. Pea aphids gained the ability to synthesize these pigments from genes transferred from fungi. While pea aphids do not have chloroplasts or fix carbon, researchers have found that pea aphids with more pigments have higher levels of ATP than those with fewer pigments. Pea aphids also have been shown to increase production of ATP when exposed to sunlight. Based on this information, is the pea aphid a true autotroph?

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BiologiaMagister

An autotroph is an organism that can generate it's own nutrients. In the example, you see a relationship which allows the pea aphid to gain more energy, but not produce it.

And hetertroph is an organisms that can't generate it's own nutrients, and therefore needs to feed on something, which is the case of pea aphids.



Hope it helped,



BioTeacher101

chaselindstrom0

Answer:

The correct answer is D

Explanation:

Based on the information given we can not say pea aphid as an autotroph. Because pea aphid ability to produce ATP in the presence of sun is due to the light-capturing pigment that it gains from the genes transferred from fungi.

As pea aphid do not have any chloroplast and it cannot fix carbon so it is not a true autotroph. We can say it false autotroph because it can produce ATP in the presence of sunlight and can show increased production of ATP at the higher level of pigment.