Adapting to the Environment

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Adapting to the Environment

Natural selection

A characteristic that makes an individual better suited to it´s environment may eventually become common in that species through a process called natural selection. Natural selection works like this: Individuals whose unique characteristics are best suited for their environment tend to survive and produce offspring. Offspring that inherit these characteristics also live to reproduce. In this way, natural selection results in adaptations. Individuals with characteristics that are poorly suited to the environment are less likely to survive and reproduce. Over time, poorly suited characteristics may disappear from the species.

Each organism in the saguaro community has unique characteristics.

These characteristics affect the individual´s ability to survive in it´s environment.

defense

strategies

mimicry

Some animals have the abilities to mimic the appearance of other animals to scare prey away.

Organisms display a wide array

of adaptations that help them

avoid becoming prey

false coloring

mutualism

Some animals have false coloring that allows them to seem like something else and are able to scare prey away.

protective

covering

A relationship in which both species benefit. In some cases of mutualism 2 species are so dependent of each other that neither of them can survive without the other.

symbiosis

Some animals have a hard cover over their skin that serves them as protection from other animals.

warning coloring

Some animals have bright colors in their skin, coat, etc. This does not allow them to blend in. So instead their bright colors is what scares prey away, because they know they are poisonous.

Symbiosis is a close relationship between 2 species that benefits at least one of the species.

camouflage

Some animals fool predators by blending with bark, leafs, etc.

commensalism

A relationship in which one species benefits and the other species is neither helped nor harmed. Commensalism is not very common in nature because species are usually either helped or harmed a little by interaction.

parasitism

It involves one organism living on or inside another organism and harming it. The organism that benefits is called parasite, and the organism that it lives in or on is called a host.

niche

Every organism has a variety of adaptations that are suited to its specific living conditions. The organisms in the saguaro community have adaptations that result in specific roles. The role of an organism in its habitat, or how it makes its living, is called niche. A niche includes the type of food the organism eats, how it obtains this food, and which other organisms use the organism as food.

competition

Different species can share the same habitat and food requirements. However these 2 species do not occupy exactly the same niche. The reason for this is competition, the struggle between organisms to survive as they attempt to use the same limited resource.

predation

prey

adaptations

Organisms have many kind of adaptations that help them avoid becoming prey.

An interaction in which one organism kills another for food is called predation. The organism that does the killing is called the predator, and the one that is killed is called prey.

predator

adaptations

Predators have adaptations that help them catch and kill their prey. Some predators have adaptations that enable them to hunt at night.

the effect of predation

on population size

Predation can have a major effect in population. When the death rate exceeds the birth rate in a population, the size of that population usually decreases. So if there are many predators, the result is often a decrease in the size of the population of their prey. But a decrease in the number of prey results in less food for the predators. Without adequate food, the predator population starts to decline.