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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]
For example, adaptive behavior is a mechanism of population stabilization. [23] In natural communities, organisms are able to interact with each other creating complex food webs and predator-prey dynamics. Adaptive behavior helps modulate the dynamics of feeding relationships by having a direct effect on their feeding traits and strategies. [23]
Adaptive traits are those that produce more copies of the individual's genes in future generations. Maladaptive traits are those that leave fewer. For example, if a bird that can call more loudly attracts more mates, then a loud call is an adaptive trait for that species because a louder bird mates more frequently than less loud birds—thus ...
In evolution, a maladaptation (/ ˌ m æ l æ d æ p ˈ t eɪ ʃ ə n /) is a trait that is (or has become) more harmful than helpful, in contrast with an adaptation, which is more helpful than harmful. All organisms, from bacteria to humans, display maladaptive and adaptive traits. In animals (including humans), adaptive behaviors contrast ...
Phenotypic plasticity refers to some of the changes in an organism's behavior, morphology and physiology in response to a unique environment. [1] [2] Fundamental to the way in which organisms cope with environmental variation, phenotypic plasticity encompasses all types of environmentally induced changes (e.g. morphological, physiological, behavioural, phenological) that may or may not be ...
However, a trait can have a current function that is adaptive without being an adaptation in this sense, if for instance the environment has changed. Imagine an environment in which having a small body suddenly conferred benefit on an organism when previously body size had had no effect on survival. [3]
Psychological adaptations fall under the scope of evolved psychological mechanisms (EPMs), [2] however, EPMs refer to a less restricted set. Psychological adaptations include only the functional traits that increase the fitness of an organism, while EPMs refer to any psychological mechanism that developed through the processes of evolution.
A prerequisite for natural selection to result in adaptive evolution, novel traits and speciation is the presence of heritable genetic variation that results in fitness differences. Genetic variation is the result of mutations, genetic recombinations and alterations in the karyotype (the number, shape, size and internal arrangement of the ...