Sentence Correction

Tropical bats play important roles in the rain forest ecosystem, aiding in the dispersal of cashew, date and fig seeds; pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly help produce tequila by pollinating agave plants.

A) pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly help produce
B) pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly helping to produce
C) pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and they indirectly help to produce
D) they pollinate banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly help producing
E) they pollinate banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly helping the producing of

The correct answer is B - why don't the two clauses after the semicolons need a subject? I thought that any clause after a semicolon needed a subject to be an independent clause but that does not seem to be the case here.

edn2015 wrote:why don't the two clauses after the semicolons need a subject? I thought that any clause after a semicolon needed a subject to be an independent clause but that does not seem to be the case here.

Here, bats are responsible for the following LIST of actions:
aiding in the dispersal of cashew, date, and fig seeds
pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees
indirectly helping to produce tequila by pollinating agave plants.
The phrases in red are quite long and include COMMAS.
When entries in a list are especially long and/or include commas, SEMI-COLONS may serve to separate the entries.
The result here is the OA:
Tropical bats play important roles in the rain forest ecosystem, aiding in the dispersal of cashew, date, and fig seeds; pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly helping to produce tequila by pollinating agave plants.
The usage of semi-colons makes it easier to discern where one entry in the list ends and another begins