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In behavioral ecology, adaptive behavior is any behavior that contributes directly or indirectly to an individual's reproductive success, and is thus subject to the forces of natural selection. [1] Examples include favoring kin in altruistic behaviors, sexual selection of the most fit mate, and defending a territory or harem from rivals.
Adaptive capacity confers resilience to perturbation, giving ecological and human social systems the ability to reconfigure themselves with minimum loss of function.In ecological systems, this resilience shows as net primary productivity and maintenance of biomass and biodiversity, and the stability of hydrological cycles.
Examples include searching for food, mating, and vocalizations. Physiological adaptations permit the organism to perform special functions such as making venom , secreting slime , and phototropism , but also involve more general functions such as growth and development , temperature regulation , ionic balance and other aspects of homeostasis .
In the life sciences the term adaptability is used variously. At one end of the spectrum, the ordinary meaning of the word suffices for understanding. At the other end, there is the term as introduced by Conrad, [3] referring to a particular information entropy measure of the biota of an ecosystem, or of any subsystem of the biota, such as a population of a single species, a single individual ...
Phenotypic plasticity refers to some of the changes in an organism's behavior, morphology and physiology in response to a unique environment. [1] [2] Fundamental to the way in which organisms cope with environmental variation, phenotypic plasticity encompasses all types of environmentally induced changes (e.g. morphological, physiological, behavioural, phenological) that may or may not be ...
Seminal examples of local adaptation come from plants that adapted to different elevations [10] or to tolerate heavy metals in soils. [11] Interactions among species (e.g. herbivore-plant interactions) can also drive local adaptation, though do not seem to be as important as abiotic factors, at least for plants in temperate ecosystems. [12]
Universal adaptive strategy theory (UAST) is an evolutionary theory developed by J. Philip Grime in collaboration with Simon Pierce describing the general limits to ecology and evolution based on the trade-off that organisms face when the resources they gain from the environment are allocated between either growth, maintenance or regeneration ...
Figure 16.5 Some examples of these are building seawalls or inland flood defenses, providing new insurance schemes, changing crop planting times or varieties, and installing green roofs or green spaces. Adaptation can be reactive (responding to climate impacts as they happen) or proactive (taking steps in anticipation of future climate change).