Potatoes were the main crop in ireland in the 1800s. almost the entire population of ireland was dependent
on a single variety of potato, the “lumper.” these potatoes were reproduced by a method of asexual
reproduction known as vegetative propagation. in the middle of the 1800s, a disease caused by a fungus
killed almost the entire lumper crop within two years. as a result, millions of people in ireland died of starvation.
the most likely reason the potato disease was able to destroy the potato crop in such a short time is that the
(1) potato population lacked variations
(2) lumper variety had a long reproductive cycle
(3) lumper had several variations caused by vegetative propagation
(4) potato population in ireland utilized all of the finite resources