A photo of Elodea cells in its normal environment & Figure 2, a photo of plasmol

Question

A photo of Elodea cells in its normal environment & Figure 2, a photo of plasmolyzed Elodea cells. Why are the cells pictured in Figure 2 different from the Elodea cells in Figure 1? A) The cell wall is shrinking and squeezing the contents of the cell. B) The cell cytoplasm is losing water so the cell membrane is pulling away from the cell wall. C) The cell wall is expanding because water is filling the space between the wall and the cell membrane. D) The nucleus is expanding. E) There is no difference between the shapes of the cells in figure 1 and 2, they are identical cells just photographed in different viewing fields of the same slide. Cell in figure 2 were placed in what kind of solution? A) hypertonic B) hypotonic C) isotonic D) More information is needed to answer the question. A marine plant, which normally lives in the ocean (salt water), is placed in distilled water for 10 minutes resulting cells would probably A) become turgid. B) become flaccid. C) look like the plant cells in Figure 2 D) would lyse or burst. E) would not change.

Explanation / Answer

1. Answer : B : The cell cytoplasm is losing water so the cell membrane is pulling away from the cell wall.

As water is continuously losed, plasma membrane shrinks its contents and pulled away from cell wall. And when water loss continues, cell completely shrinks.

2. Answer : A : Hypertonic

When a cell is placed in hypertonic solution, solute concentration will be lower inside the cell, so water moves out of the cell. And this results in plasmolysis.

Reason for other options :

Hypotonic solution : Solute concentration will be higher inside the cell, so more water moves into the cell and cause bulging of the cell.

Isotonic solution : Solute concentration will be same outside and inside the cell so no movement of water and the cell remains normal.

3. Answer : A : become turgid

The distilled water is hypotonic solution as it contains no dissolved solids or molecules. When the marine plant is placed in distilled water, the solute concentration will be high inside the cell compared to the distilled water. So, water moves into the cell and become turgid in the first ten minutes of time but when the water movement continues, cell will burst.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse A
• Subjects

---

---

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.