Final answer:
Domestication involves selective breeding which leads to enhanced features, including increased size of edible parts in plants such as corn and peas. The domestication process has transformed a variety of crops by human selection.
Step-by-step explanation:
Domestication indeed leads to increased size of edible parts. This is a result of selective breeding where humans have historically chosen plants with larger and more useful edible components for cultivation. Over generations, this selection process leads to significantly altered plant varieties with enhanced features preferred by humans, such as bigger fruits, seeds, or vegetables. The domestication process is not limited to just part size but also includes the reduction of bitter-tasting natural chemicals, a shorter time to harvest, and a decline in natural seed dispersal mechanisms.
An example illustrating this can be seen with crops such as corn and peas, which have been selected over thousands of years, for larger edible parts such as the kernels of corn and the peas within the pod. Similarly, the domestication of wheat and barley involved selecting for thinner husks and more seeds. This selective breeding has brought about substantial changes in the genetic makeup of these crops, often reducing genetic diversity within the species but increasing the size of the parts we eat.