Question 21

[ckain7170]

First sentence mentions that "The DNA content varies markedly ... even when organisms are closely related."
This implies that DNA content does not affect the organisms phenotype.

[jellywing_2058]

Yes, the passage does briefly support answer choice A. However, as the explanation states, haploid organisms cannot mask recessive alleles by being heterozygotes as they only have one copy of each chromosome.

The answer to this question was therefore not to be found in the passage but from your general knowledge of genetics. The answer that states the least affected characteristic is answer choice D.