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In order to deal with the plant's adaptability, the animal likewise evolved counter-adaptations. [8] Over the history of their shared evolution, plants and animals have significantly diverged, in large part because of productive co-evolutionary processes that emerged from antagonistic interactions.
Many different plant species live in the high-altitude environment. These include perennial grasses, sedges, forbs, cushion plants, mosses, and lichens. [81] High-altitude plants must adapt to the harsh conditions of their environment, which include low temperatures, dryness, ultraviolet radiation, and a short growing season.
Two studies have assessed the contributions of soil invertebrates to the polar ecosystem in Antarctica, suggesting that biotic interactions play crucial roles in such a seemingly simple ecosystem. [18] [19] For animals to be able to live in the polar region they have to have adaptations which allow them to live in the cold and windy environments.
Many aspects of an animal or plant can be correctly called adaptations, though there are always some features whose function remains in doubt. By using the term adaptation for the evolutionary process, and adaptive trait for the bodily part or function (the product), one may distinguish the two different senses of the word. [14] [15] [16] [17]
Acclimatization or acclimatisation (also called acclimation or acclimatation) is the process in which an individual organism adjusts to a change in its environment (such as a change in altitude, temperature, humidity, photoperiod, or pH), allowing it to maintain fitness across a range of environmental conditions.
Shade tolerant plants have a range of adaptations to help them survive the altered quantity and quality of light typical of shade environments. Excess light occurs at the top of canopies and on open ground when cloud cover is low and the sun's zenith angle is low, typically this occurs in the tropics and at high altitudes.
Aquatic plants have adapted to live in either freshwater or saltwater. Aquatic vascular plants have originated on multiple occasions in different plant families; [5] [9] they can be ferns or angiosperms (including both monocots and dicots). The only angiosperms capable of growing completely submerged in seawater are the seagrasses. [10]
Most organisms do not all fit neatly into either group, however. Some species are highly specialized (the most extreme case being monophagous, eating one specific type of food), others less so, and some can tolerate many different environments. In other words, there is a continuum from highly specialized to broadly generalist species.