Powerprep test 2 question 17

[indiangal91]

Extensive housing construction is underway in Pataska Forest, The habitat of a large population of deer. Because deer feed at the edges of forests, these deer will be attracted to the spaces alongside the new roads being cut through the forest to serve the new residential areas. Consquently, once houses are occupied, annual nuber of deer hit by cars will be much higher than before construction started.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends:
A: the development will leave sufficient forest to sustain a significant population of deer

So i dont think i understand this question at all because i dont see how this answer choice is correct at all.
Let me know if you need the other answer choices.
Also i took the MP class in march so can i still email those tutors instead of posting on this forum? or is this way better/ prefered

[tommywallach]

Hey Indiangal,

The issue here is that the argument is assuming the same number of deer will be living in the smaller forest. If that were true, then we would indeed expect more of them to be hit by cars (because they'd be hanging out along the edge of the forest, where the roads are).

Unfortunately, ecosystems are more complicated than that. It could be that once the housing construction has been built, there won't be that much forest left at all, and most of the deer will die off (because there isn't enough food/space to support them all). In that case, we would actually expect to see fewer deer get hit by cars, because there wouldn't be that many left in the forest (if any). It's true that the proportion of deer getting hit by cars would likely be higher, but the absolute number of deer getting hit would depend on the absolute number of deer in the forest.

Hope that helps!

-t