Adaptation

wolf on July 1st, 2011

A reversible, adaptive response that enables animals to tolerate environmental change (e.g. seasonal climatic change) involving several factors (e.g. temperature and availability of food). The response is physiological, but may affect behaviour (e.g. when an animal responds physiologically to falling temperature in ways that make *hibernation possible, and behaviourally by seeking a nesting site, nesting [...]

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wolf on July 1st, 2011

A response by an animal that enables it to tolerate a change in a single factor (e.g. temperature) in its environment. The term is applied most commonly to animals used in laboratory experiments and implies a change in only one factor.

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wolf on July 1st, 2011

The process by which an organism is fitted to its environment as a consequence of the characters it inherits, which have been filtered by *natural selection in previous environments. Because present environments seldom differ greatly from recent past environments, adaptive fitness can resemble “adaptation. In this sense, however, adaptation appears to imply advance planning, or [...]

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wolf on March 25th, 2009

Often one or more changes may occur abruptly in some attributes of a group of animals, with the aid of which the group may get adapted to a changed environment. Such change may not be beneficial under the existing conditions. Such adaptation is known as Pre-adaptation or Prospective adaptation (Simpson, 1958). On the other hand, [...]

Continue reading about Pre-adaptation and post-adaptation

wolf on March 25th, 2009

Adaptation is the modification or change in the structural, functional and behavioural attributes of an organism for better survival and to cope with existing environmental conditions. Adaptations allow the animal to suit to the environment for better survival in the struggle for existence. It allows the animal to proceed through the evolutionary pathway.

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