I have an essay question related to AP Bio. ?

Question

AP bio question:

Female silkworm moths (Bombyx mori) attract males by emitting chemical signals that spread through the air. A male hundreds of meters away can detect these molecules and fly toward their source. The sensory organs responsible for this behavior are the comblike antennae visible in the photograph here. Each filament of an antenna is equipped with thousands of receptor cells that detect the s*x attractant. Based on what you learned in this chapter, propose a hypothesis to account for the ability of the male moth to detect a specific molecule in the presence of many other molecules in the air. What predictions does your hypothesis make? Design an experiment to test one of these predictions.

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.

Answer 1

Oh LOL, I have to do the same question. My answer is similar to the other one.

Answer 2

Okay.

Female silkworm moths emit a pheromone.  Let's just call it pA.

But in those hundreds of meters in between this one female silkworm moth, there are thousands of OTHER female insects, and all of them emit pheromones of their own:  pF for fireflies, pD for dragonflies, pM for Monarch butterflies, pGM for those little grey moths fluttering around.

That male has sensory organs whose purpose is to help him find a mate.  So what do these sensory organs sense FOR?  What airborne chemical stimulates the receptor cells on a male silkworm moth?  And how do the receptor cells differentiate between all these pheromones?  After all, they're all chemicals and they all are s*x attractants, so how does a silkworm receptor cell find a silkworm pheromone molecule in the middle of a whole bunch of other pheromone molecules?

So you need a theory that addresses how the receptor cell and the pheromone are chemically related so that the receptor ONLY recognizes a certain chemical structure, a certain molecule, a certain ionic charge on a molecule.

Then design an experiment using male silkworm moths and several different pheromones emitted by various female insects, including a female silkworm moth.

What are the chemical structures of the different pheromone molecules?  Do they have different ionic charges?  Is there something in the chemical structure of the silkworm pheromone that the other pheromones don't have?

I hope that helps steer you toward a resolution.  I always hated essay questions like this.