Although beneficial for forestalling loss of vascular function when leaf veins are blocked, reticulate (netlike) leaf-vein topologies in plants are thought to reduce efficiency in water and sugar transport and to increase vein construction costs relative to branched topologies. Charles A. Price and Joshua S. Weitz assessed these trade-offs by comparing vascular function in the reticulate patterns of Acer griseum (paperbark maple) and other angiosperm leaf veins with that of analogous open-branching patterns. Though reticulation did indeed have added costs, they were offset by its benefits.
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Verbal·Craft and Structure·Text Structure and Purpose
mediumWhich choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
A
It indicates a research team’s skepticism about the claim stated in the previous sentence that vascular function in plants with reticulate veins is necessarily inferior to that of plants with branching veins.
B
It introduces a novel method for evaluating the hypothesis advanced in the previous sentence regarding the causes of vascular impairment in branched-vein topologies.
C
It explains an approach that researchers took in a study to determine the impacts of reticulation on vascular function in plants.
D
It suggests why researchers were surprised by the finding of the relative costs and benefits of two types of venation patterns.