Adaptations Notes

Adaptations Structures, functions, or behaviors that help an organism to survive in its environment and reproduce ◦These can be broken down into three major categories of adaptations-- structural, functional, and behavioral adaptations.

Structural Adaptations Physical features of an organism that help it to survive. Examples: A hawk’s talons, the shark’s broad tail, the toad’s long sticky tongue, a clam’s hard shell, an alligator’s coloring. There are several types of structural adaptations.

Protective Coloration Organisms that blend in well are better adapted for survival in that environment than organisms that are a different color. Examples: A praying mantis’s exoskeleton, a leopard’s spots, a zebra’s stripes, a frog’s green skin.

Warning Coloration Occurs in certain poisonous or unpleasant-tasting animals. Predators are able to recognize it because of its distinctive coloring. Examples: Monarch butterflies, poison dart frogs, bees and wasps.

Mimicry A defenseless animal or plant (called the mimic) looks like another animal or plant (called the model) with qualities that cause predators to avoid it. Examples: Viceroy butterfly mimics the monarch butterfly which is poisonous to birds, scarlet king snake mimics the poisonous coral snake.

MonarchViceroy

Red touch yellow, kill a fellow!

Self-mimicry A term for animals that have one body part that mimics another to increase survival during an attack. Examples: Some moths and fish have “eyespots” to look like larger animals.

Functional Adaptations An organisms ability to do something that helps it to survive in its environment. Examples: The skunk’s ability to produce and spray disgusting defensive chemicals, the bee’s ability to transform nectar into honey, and the human’s ability to reason.

Behavioral Adaptations The things an organism does to survive. Examples: A squirrel storing nuts, the black bear’s hibernation, the herring’s habit of schooling, the crayfish’s territorial defense, and the arctic tern’s annual migration.

Some Basics Ideas to Review Organisms of the same kind are members of the same species. All members of a species have similar adaptations. The members of a species that are living together and interacting are a population. Not all members of a population have identical traits! ◦Within a population there is VARIATION

Variation The range of expression of a trait within a population Example: Thick fur is a FEATURE of polar bears. Some polar bears have thicker fur (TRAIT) than others. This is variation.

Feature Any general structure, characteristic or behavior of an organism. Examples: Wings, fur, pattern, color, and migration can be features of an organism.

Trait The specific expression of a feature in an individual. Examples: Wing length, density of fur, number of spots, intensity of color, or timing of a migration can be traits in individual organisms.

Variation can show up in an organism’s structures. For example, some giraffes have longer necks than others. Look around you…do you see the variation in size, eye color, hair color and sensitivity to cold? Variation can also show up in behavior. For example, some silk moths spin denser cocoons than others. Some sunflowers bloom a few days earlier than others. Look around you…do you know people who sleep later, talk louder, eat more, or play more sports than others?

Walkingsticks Walkingsticks Walkingsticks come in different shades of greens and browns. Color is a feature of walkingsticks. The different colors are the traits of individual walkingsticks. On Friday, you will be using computers to work with a population of walkingsticks.

The individuals in the walkingstick population vary in color from brown to green. Walkingsticks are preyed upon by birds. When a bird sees a walkingstick, it catches it and eats it, thus removing it from the population.

The question you need to answer is: What effect does variation in the species have on the walkingstick population?