Mature white pines intercept almost all the sunlight that shines on them. They leave a deep litter that dries readily, and they grow to prodigious height so that, even when there are large gaps in a stand of such trees, little light reaches the forest floor. For this reason white pines cannot regenerate in their own shade. Thus, when in a dense forest a stand of trees consists of nothing but mature white pines, it is a fair bet that __. Which one of the following most logically concludes the argument?
A: other species of trees will soon begin to colonize the stand, eventually replacing all of the white pines
B: competition among the trees in the stand for sunlight will soon result in some trees' dying and the stand thus becoming thinner
C: the ages of the trees in the stand do not differ from each other by much more than the length of time it takes a white pine to grow to maturity
D: the land on which the stand is now growing had been cleared of all trees at the time when the first of the white pines started growing
Choose A, B, C or D as your solution.
C