There's two ways it does, radically different.
Firstly the choice of lens forces you to be at a certain distance to get the required framing.
Secondly, the lens itself introduces distortion, as
@jarlrmai described above.
From an "understanding optics" point of view, It is a useful point to make that if you take a 16mm wide angle photo, then crop the center of it, then that's the same a 50mm lens, or 500mm, whatever the crop factor is.
Like I said earlier, it's a somewhat semantic discussion. The resultant image is a factor of the position AND the lens. Sure you could get nearly the same image with an 8mm lens at the same distance, and then cropping. However you CAN'T get the same image with a 50mm lens at the same distance, because it can't duplicate the wider angle distortion of 16mm, it can only replicate the center.
The Bidens are closer to the edges of the image, so they are also enlarged and distorted because of that.