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Adaptation is related to biological fitness, which governs the rate of evolution as measured by changes in allele frequencies. Often, two or more species co-adapt and co-evolve as they develop adaptations that interlock with those of the other species, such as with flowering plants and pollinating insects .
Interactions between organisms can produce both conflict and cooperation. When the interaction is between pairs of species, such as a pathogen and a host, or a predator and its prey, these species can develop matched sets of adaptations. Here, the evolution of one species causes adaptations in a second species.
Adaptationism is an approach to studying the evolution of form and function. It attempts to frame the existence and persistence of traits, assuming that each of them arose independently and improved the reproductive success of the organism's ancestors.
This type of evolution creates analogous structures which have a similar function, structure, or form between the two species. For example, sharks and dolphins look alike but they are not related. Likewise, birds, flying insects, and bats all have the ability to fly, but they are not related to each other.
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 ...
Evolutionary ecology mostly considers two things: how interactions (both among species and between species and their physical environment) shape species through selection and adaptation, and the consequences of the resulting evolutionary change.
Some behaviors or traits exhibited during childhood or adolescence may have been selected to serve as preparations for adult life, a type of adaptation that evolutionary developmental psychologists have named "deferred adaptations". [24] Sex differences in children's play may be an example of this type of adaptation: higher frequencies of ...
Individual differences commonly arise through both heritable and non-heritable adaptive behavior. Both have been proven to be influential in the evolution of species' adaptive behaviors, although non-heritable adaptation remains a controversial subject. [2]