Organisms who are unable to adapt to recurring or persistent change in the environment would most likely have difficulty surviving as individuals as well as on the species level. That being said, every species and environment is difficult, so survival strategies may differ.
Organisms who cannot adapt to recurring or persistent environmental change are likely to experience a high degree of physical stress due to lack of food and water, problems with thermal regulation, or access to shelter. Such stress may induce an increase or decrease in attempts to procreate depending on that organism's typical behaviors, but females who are under high stress are not likely to produce viable offspring. Since the problem is with adaptation, any viable offspring are even less likely than their parents to successfully reproduce in the wake of recurring or persistent change.
Let's consider a very real problem threatening many organisms today: global climate change. We are in a period of global warming caused by human activity that is resulting in an increase in global temperatures that is far more rapid than anything ever experienced before. Evolution naturally occurs over many thousands and millions of years of gradual change in response to environmental pressures. A very slow change in temperature--say, one degree warmer or cooler every thousand years--would give species plenty of time to adapt to this change. The rate at which global warming is currently occurring is too fast for a significant number of organisms to keep up, and those which can't adapt are likely to go extinct. Species like the Golden Toad (Bufo periglenes) have already gone extinct because they cannot adapt rapidly enough to survive in a warmer climate. Many more species are endangered or threatened by the prospect of global warming, either directly due to temperature, or indirectly through loss of habitat and food sources.
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/biodiversity/elements_of_biodiversity/extinction_crisis/
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/4/140331-global-warming-climate-change-ipcc-animals-science-environment/
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Would organisms who are unable to adapt to recurring environmental changes be more likely to reproduce more, reproduce less, or have difficulty surviving?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Summarize the major research findings of "Toward an experimental ecology of human development."
Based on findings of prior research, the author, Bronfenbrenner proposes that methods for natural observation research have been applied in ...
-
The Awakening is told from a third-person omniscient point of view. It is tempting to say that it is limited omniscient because the narrator...
-
Roger is referred to as the "dark boy." He is a natural sadist who becomes the "official" torturer and executioner of Ja...
-
One way to support this thesis is to explain how these great men changed the world. Indeed, Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) was the quintes...
-
The major difference that presented itself between American and British Romantic works was their treatment of the nation and its history. Th...
-
After the inciting incident, where Daniel meets his childhood acquaintance Joel in the mountains outside the village, the rising action begi...
-
The Southern economy was heavily dependent upon slave labor. The Southern economy was agrarian; agriculture was its lifeblood, and being abl...
-
The first step in answering the question is to note that it conflates two different issues, sensation-seeking behavior and risk. One good ap...
No comments:
Post a Comment