Originally from South America, potatoes became a common food…
Originally from South America, potatoes became a common food source in Europe during the late 1700s and early 1800s. During the 1840s, however, the European potato crop collapsed due to the rapid spread of potato blight (a fungal pathogen). The loss of this important food source resulted in mass migration and starvation. Most infamously, the potato blight contributed to the Great Famine in Ireland (though other socio-political factors were also to blame). Before the blight, potatoes were typically propagated clonally, by cutting up the tuber (the part you eat) into pieces and using these pieces to grow new, identical plants. Given what you know about the evolution of sex, why did the clonal propagation of the potato make the crop especially susceptible to a devastating pathogen outbreak?