Adaptations to the Environment

1. Adaptations to theEnvironment From Buckle Down Mississippi

2. Adaptations • You may know that some animals, such as chameleons and octopuses, can change the color of their skin. • This ability is good for camouflage, or blending into the surroundings. • Animals with the ability to change the color of their skin often use it to avoid predators or to surprise their prey.

3. Adaptations • The ability to change skin color is one example of an adaptation. • An adaptation is any trait that helps the individuals of a species respond to and survive within an environment. • In this lesson, we will look at some common adaptations that help animals and plants survive in their environments.

4. The ability to change skin color is useful for more than just camouflage. Describe one other reason why an animal might change skin color.

5. Adaptations- Attention Please! • Some animals are adapted to attract attention, such as to attract members of their own species for mating purposes, • or as a warning to possible enemies (predators) of their bitter or smelly secretions or a powerful sting.

6. Adaptations-Mimicry: Looking Dangerous • The Mexican milk snake is not poisonous but it looks like the Texas coral snake, which predators avoid because a coral snake’s bite can be serious. • The Mexican milk uses mimicry to avoid being eaten. If red touches black, you’re ok Jack. If red touches yellow, that’s the dangerous fellow

7. List two other examples of mimicry.

8. Adaptations-Mimicry: Looking Dangerous Other interesting examples of mimicry include: • moths and butterflies with large eye spots on their wings that look like owl’s eyes • a moth that mimics hornets-it even has what looks like a stinger on its abdomen.

9. Homeostasis • When you think of an organism interacting with its environment, you might first think of the external environment—the air, water, and/or land in which the organism lives. • But an organism must also respond to changes inside itself, called its internal environment. • In general, organisms must keep their internal environments fairly stable.

10. Homeostasis • Take the human body as an example. The human body works best when its temperature is around 37° C or 98.6º F. • If a human body gets too warm, it releases some of that heat by sweating. • If a human body gets too cold, it produces more heat for itself by shivering.

11. Homeostasis • The ability to maintain a constant internal environment is called homeostasis. • (Homeo means "steady" and stasis means "state.")

12. Name two other internal conditions to which your body responds.

13. Homeostasis • Different animals maintain homeostasis in different ways. • Again, consider an animal's internal temperature. Mammals have bodies that automatically maintain their internal temperatures. • For this reason, they are called warm-blooded animals.

14. Homeostasis • Other animals, such as reptiles, maintain their internal temperatures through behavior. • If a lizard gets too warm, for example, it will go into the shade to cool off. • If a lizard gets too cold, it will bask in the Sun. • Animals that maintain their body temperatures through behaviors are called cold-blooded animals.

15. Explain why mammals may be found in polar regions but reptiles are not.

16. Adaptations to External Environments • Of course, organisms must also respond to changes in their external environments, or the places in which they live. • Many places on the Earth have seasons—months of rainy weather followed by months of dry weather, or months of cold temperatures followed by months of warm temperatures.

17. Adaptations to External Environments • Seasonal changes usually affect the amount of food available in an environment. • Organisms have evolved different behavioral responses to the changing availability of food in their environments.

18. Adaptations to External Environments • Hibernation is a condition in which an animal remains in a sleep-like state for weeks, months, or even years.

19. Adaptations to External Environments • Black bears, for example, fatten themselves up during the summer months when food is plentiful. During winter, they hibernate and slowly use up the food energy stored in their fat. • Some insects and reptiles also hibernate when temperatures are low and food and water are scarce.

20. Adaptations to External Environments • Migration is another behavior for dealing with limited food availability.

21. Adaptations to External Environments • Birds, for example, rely on insects, nectar, and seeds for food. • Because flowers and insects are not easy to find during cold or dry months, many species of bird migrate to areas where they can find such food. • Some animals also migrate to special places for the purpose of mating and giving birth to their offspring.

22. Explain why most animals in Mississippi do not hibernate during winter months.

23. Adaptations and Evolution • Offspring that inherit a helpful adaptation have a better chance of surviving than offspring that do not inherit the trait. • Let's examine what happens to a crab population over many generations when natural selection favors an adaptation.

24. Adaptations and Evolution • Suppose that a crab population lives on an island where a predator bird has been introduced. • Most of the crabs have soft shells, but a few have hard shells. • The predator bird has an easier time eating the soft-shelled variety. • The hard-shelled crabs begin to live longer and reproduce more than the soft-shelled crabs.

25. Adaptations and Evolution • Over many generations, most of crabs have hard shells and very few have soft shells. • When natural selection favors the survival and reproduction of hard-shelled crabs, they become more common.

26. Describe a trait that would help the predator bird overcome the crab’s hard-shelled trait.

27. Adaptations and Evolution • The change that took place in the crab population is an example of evolution. • Any change in a population's genetic makeup that takes place over many generations is called evolution. • Species change over time as certain traits become more common in the population and others less common.

28. Adaptations and Evolution • There is lots of evidence that present-day species have descended from other species through evolution. • DNA evidence has demonstrated that species who share the most traits also share the most DNA. • Because DNA is inherited, these different species must be related through a common ancestor.

29. Adaptations in the Fossil Record • As recently as one million years ago, at least 10 species of elephant walked the Earth, including eight species of mammoth. • Today, only three elephant species still exist: two types of African elephant and the Asian elephant. • Both species of African elephant are now endangered.

30. Name one reason, other than human activity, why a species may go extinct.

31. Adaptations in the Fossil Record • One reason for the reduced number of elephants is that most species were specialists. • A species that specializes is adapted to a very particular environment. • If that environment changes quickly, a species that specializes typically cannot adapt quickly enough to survive.

32. Adaptations in the Fossil Record • Woolly mammoths, for example, thrived in ice age conditions, but their numbers began dropping as global temperatures rose. • The three species of elephants alive today, on the other hand, can survive in a wider range of climates than the woolly mammoths could.

33. Adaptations in the Fossil Record • Probably the most important environmental change, however, was the rise of humans as the top predator on the planet. • Slow-moving mammoth herds were no match for packs of swift, cunning human hunters. • Between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago, most species of large mammal went extinct in North and South America.

34. List at least five other types of animals involved in this mass extinction.

35. Adaptations in the Fossil Record • This mass extinction included the Columbian mammoth, the Woolly mammoth, and the American mastodon. • Other species that went extinct included a beaver the size of a bear, five species of horse, three deer species, three species of musk ox, two species of wild ox, two species of giant armadillo, many species of giant sloth, and the only species of American camel.

36. Adaptations in the Fossil Record • Blame for these extinctions cannot be laid solely upon humans. • Changes to the global climate also played an important role. • Nonetheless, mammalian life in the Americas was much more diverse and far more massive before the arrival of humans.

37. Name one other mass extinction thought to have been brought on by environmental change.