Campbell Biology (12th Edition)

Published by Pearson
ISBN 10: 0135188741
ISBN 13: 978-0-13518-874-3

Chapter 30 - 30.4 - Concept Check - Page 652: 2

Answer

Phylogenies could be useful in this way if researchers found close relatives of plants which already produce useful medicines. These relatives might produce useful variants of those medicines or some related but otherwise useful compounds.

Work Step by Step

Since closely related plants are likely to have many similar traits, it would be more efficient to look among such plants for new useful compounds than it would be to examine random samplings of plants.
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