Adaptations Flashcards
What are adaptations?
Inherited characteristics that increase the likelihood or survival and reproduction of an individual organism in a particular environment. They allow organisms to:
Live in extreme environments
Access resources and mates
Defend themselves and their territories
Communicate and interact with their own & other species.
What are structural adaptations? Give an example of a structural adaptation for a plant and an animal.
Relating to anatomical or morphological features; physical characteristics.
Plant: Cacti have waxy cuticles and a sunken stomata to minimise water loss and maximise water absorption.
Animal: The thorny devil has large prickly spikes that make it appeal less to predators, and also allow for the collection of water.
What are physiological adaptations? Give an example of a physiological adaptation for a plant and an animal.
Adaptations that affect the functioning of an organism at different levels of organisation.
Plant: Deciduous beech abscises leaves in winter to undergo a period of dormancy.
Animal: Spinifex hopping mouse can reabsorb most of the water from its urine back into its bloodstream to excrete highly concentrated urine.
What are behavioural adaptations? Give an example of a behavioural adaptation for a plant and an animal.
Adaptations relating to changes in behaviour.
Plant: Mimosa pudica responds to the stimulus of touch by folding inwards
Animal: Penguins huddling together to share body heat.
What is the theory of evolution by natural selection?
Due to biodiversity, there will always be organisms in a population possessing traits that are better suited to a particular environment. These organisms are more likely to survive and reproduce to pass on their characteristics to their offspring. Conversely, those who possess un-favourable traits will not reproduce, nor survive.
What was the theory of evolution by acquired characteristics?
According to Lamarck, organisms altered their behavior in response to environmental change. Their changed behavior, in turn, modified their organs, and their offspring inherited those “improved” structures.
Summarise how Darwin proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection.
On galapagos island he saw several different
types of finches, with a different species on
each island.
Each finch species had a different type of beak
depending on the food available on its island
Those that eat large nuts had strong beaks for breaking open nuts
Those that are small nuts and seeds had beaks to do so
Several birds from one species of finch had been blown away by storm or otherwise to different islands
The finches had to adapt to their new environments and food sources. They gradually evolved in different species
Adaptive radiation; the evolutionary process in which organisms diversify rapidly from an ancestral species into a multitude of new forms
Because of the distance between the islands it was hard to breed interspecies
