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Adaptations

2. How do adaptations help species survive in their environment?
An adaptation is a body part or behavior that helps a species survive in a particular environment.
Adaptation can help a species breathe, get food, or hide.
All species are adapted to live in certain habitats.
Species that cannot adapt will die out.

3. Have you ever wondered how animals are able to survive in the wild?
Animals have certain adaptations that help them to survive.

4. Think about the way you dress in the winter.
You don’t wear your shorts and bathing suit when it’s snowing outside!
You wear warm clothes, and maybe even a hat and mittens to protect yourself from the weather.

5. We can separate adaptations into two categories:
Physical
AND
Behavioral

6. Physical adaptations help an animal survive in its environment.
are body structures that allow an animal to find and consume food and defend itself.
Hey! I’m a walking stick. I look just like a stick you’d find on the ground.
Physical adaptations help an animal survive in its environment.
© A. Weinberg

7. Physical adaptations
Body coverings & parts (claws, beaks, feet, armor plates, skulls, teeth)
The elephant’s trunk is a physical adaptation that helps it to clean itself, eat, drink, and to pick things up.

8. Camouflage (use of color in a surrounding): to blend in
Physical adaptation
Camouflage (use of color in a surrounding): to blend in
The chameleon can change its color to match its surroundings. Can you do that?

9. (looking or sounding like another living organism)
Physical adaptation
Mimicry
(looking or sounding like another living organism)
The Viceroy butterfly uses mimicry to look like the Monarch butterfly. Can you tell them apart?
I’m the Viceroy!
Not poisonous
Poisonous
I’m the Monarch!

10. Physical adaptation
Chemical defenses (like venom, ink, sprays) The use of chemical compounds by plants and animals

11. Behavioral Adaptations…
Now let’s learn about
Behavioral Adaptations…
Behavioral Adaptations allow animals to respond to life needs.

12. Behavioral Adaptations are animals’ actions.
Remember that Physical Adaptations are body structures.
Each organism has unique methods of adapting to its environment by means of different actions.

13. We can divide Behavioral Adaptations into two groups:
Instinctive
Learned
These behaviors happen naturally & don’t have to be learned.
These behaviors must be taught.

14. = Instinctive behaviors happen naturally & don’t need to be learned
Methods of gathering & storing food
Hibernating
Defending oneself
Finding shelter
Raising young
Migrating

15. Learned behaviors
Obtained by interacting with the environment and cannot be passed on to the next generation except by teaching. =

16. Theory of Evolution Evolution: The process of change over time
Specifically, a change in the frequency of a gene or allele in a population over time

17. Misconceptions about Evolution
Evolution does not tell us about how life first appeared on Earth
Single organisms do not evolve. Only populations can evolve.
Not all changes are “good”

18. Darwin’s Background Born in England, 1809
Studied Medicine at Edinburgh University
Transferred to Cambridge University
Studied to be a Minister
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ61-104].

19. Charles Darwin Father of Evolution
Proposed a mechanism for evolution, natural selection
Darwin went on a 5-year trip around the world on the ship, the HMS Beagle in 1831
As the ship’s naturalist, he made observations of organisms in South America and the Galapagos Islands
Wrote a book, “Origin of the Species” in 1859

22. Darwin’s Finches

23. Natural Selection
Natural Selection: Organisms that are best adapted to an environment survive and reproduce more than others

24. Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection occurs in four steps:
Overproduction
Variation
Competition
Selection

25. 1. Overproduction
Each species produces more offspring that can survive

26. 2. Variation
Each individual has a unique combination of inherited traits.
Adaptation: an inherited trait that increases an organism’s chances of survival

27. What adaptations do you see?

28. What adaptations do you see?

30. Why is Variation Important?
Because the environment changes.
The more variation within a species, the more likely it will survive
EX: If everyone is the same, they are all vulnerable to the same environmental changes or diseases
The more variation of types of species in an habitat, the more likely at least some will survive
EX: Dinosaurs replaced by mammals

31. Which community has a better chance of surviving a natural disaster?
Community A
Community B

32. 3. Competition Individuals COMPETE for limited resources:
Food, water, space, mates
Natural selection occurs through “Survival of the fittest”
Fitness: the ability to survive and reproduce
Not all individuals survive to adulthood

33. 4. Selection
The individuals with the best traits / adaptations will survive and have the opportunity to pass on it’s traits to offspring.
Natural selection acts on the phenotype (physical appearance), not the genotype (genetic makeup)
Ex: When a predator finds its prey, it is due to the prey’s physical characteristics, like color or slow speed, not the alleles (BB, Bb)

34. Individuals with traits that are not well suited to their environment either die or leave few offspring.
Evolution occurs when good traits build up in a population over many generations and bad traits are eliminated by the death of the individuals.

39. Peppered Moth A
Which moth will the bird catch? B

40. Descent with Modification
Descent with Modification – each living species has descended, with changes, from other species over time.
Common Descent – all living organisms are related to one another

41. Evidence for Evolution:
Fossil Record
Homologous Body Structures
Vestigial Organs
Embryology
Biochemical Evidence

42. The Fossil Record
Fossils: a record of the history of life on Earth

43. Pangea

45. Coral Snake (Poisonous)
Milk Snake (Not poisonous)

52. Stick Mantid

53. Flower Mantid