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Information and IdeasMediumInferences: reasoning about a researcher's methodological choice

Information and Ideas practice question

The giant moa, a flightless bird that once dominated New Zealand's forests, disappeared roughly 600 years ago, leaving ecologists to guess at its role in shaping the islands' vegetation. Chemical analysis of moa bone collagen can distinguish broad dietary categories—for example, whether a bird fed mainly on shrubs or mainly on grasses—and the results reflect an average of everything the animal ate over a span of years. Jamie Wood and colleagues instead turned to moa coprolites, or fossilized droppings, in which pollen grains, leaf cuticles, and seeds survive intact. Because such remains can often be matched to a single plant, the team was able to list the particular herbs and shrubs that individual moa had cropped.

Based on the text, why did Wood and colleagues rely on coprolites rather than on bone collagen to study the moa's diet?

  1. A. Coprolites are recovered in far greater numbers than moa bones are at most excavation sites.
  2. B. Coprolites preserve plant remains that can be identified as specific plants, whereas bone collagen reveals only general categories of food.Correct
  3. C. Bone collagen breaks down too quickly to be recovered from a bird that went extinct as long ago as the moa did.
  4. D. Coprolites indicate the total quantity of vegetation that a moa consumed over the course of its life.

Answer: B. Coprolites preserve plant remains that can be identified as specific plants, whereas bone collagen reveals only general categories of food.

The text contrasts what each source of evidence can show: collagen analysis distinguishes only 'broad dietary categories,' while pollen, cuticles, and seeds in coprolites 'can often be matched to a single plant,' letting the team name the 'particular herbs and shrubs' eaten. That difference in resolution is the stated reason for the choice of method, making B correct. (A) invents a comparison of abundance that the text never makes—an error of supplying outside assumptions about fossil availability. (C) contradicts the text, which presents collagen analysis as a workable technique that yields real (if coarse) dietary information; this choice reflects the error of assuming that a rejected method must be unusable. (D) misreads the passage in two ways: quantity of food is never discussed, and it is bone collagen, not coprolites, that averages intake across years, so the choice swaps the properties of the two methods.

Why the other answers are wrong

A. Coprolites are recovered in far greater numbers than moa bones are at most excavation sites.
The text never compares how many coprolites versus bones are found — you'd have to bring in an outside assumption about fossil abundance.
C. Bone collagen breaks down too quickly to be recovered from a bird that went extinct as long ago as the moa did.
The passage presents collagen analysis as a working technique that does yield dietary information; it's less precise, not unrecoverable.
D. Coprolites indicate the total quantity of vegetation that a moa consumed over the course of its life.
Quantity of vegetation is never discussed, and it's bone collagen — not coprolites — that averages intake over years, so this swaps the two methods' properties.

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