Base your answer to the following question on the passage and on your knowledge of ecology.

Avoid Being Eaten

The snowshoe hare is the prey of many woodland animals. Foxes, coyotes, martens, and weasels hunt the hares by day, while the great horned and barred owls hunt them on silent wings at night. The snowshoe hare survives this predation partly as a result of the effects of changing environmental conditions, on the expression of genes for fur color, resulting in effective camouflage. In winter months, the hare has white fur, which blends into the snowscape. During the warm months, the fur changes to a reddish brown.

Some favorite foods of the hare during the winter months are twigs of the maple, birch, and apple trees. Grasses and clover replace this diet during the spring and summer. Hares tend to feed during the hours of dusk and dawn, when the light is low and the predators are inactive.

The hares prefer habitats along streams, wetlands, and spruce forests. Their breeding season in New York State begins in March, and a female can have a litter of one to six young only 5 weeks after mating. The young hares are able to see, are fully furred, and are able to walk and hop soon after birth. Females nurse their young until they are about a month old. Within one season, a female may have up to four litters. The snowshoe hare population tends to vary throughout the year because individual animas have a short lifespan. There seem to be cycles of about 10 years, during which the population varies from about 0.1 hare per acre up to 5 hares per acre. Some biologists suggest that the cycles are related to predation and the depletion of the hare’s food sources.

If food supply is the only limiting factor, which graph best represents a possible
relationship between the population of snowshoe hares and their food supply over a 10- year period?