BSC 385 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Fastest Animals, Kleptoparasitism, Ecophysiology

• School: University of Alabama
• Department: Biological Sciences
• Course: BSC 385
• Professor: Jonathan Benstead

Document Summary

Adaptation and physiological ecology: how organisms are adapted to their abiotic environments, temperature, moisture, salinity, fluid velocity. How do environmental factors limit growth and survival: physical resources, the inorganic materials or energy organisms require for existence, physical (abiotic) factors, physical conditions that affect growth and survival. Adaptations are the result of natural selection: specialization is expensive: no organism can maximize fitness in all environments. Fitness of phenotypes also depends on environment. Fitness: how well an organism survives and reproduces. I(cid:374)tolera(cid:374)(cid:272)e is ofte(cid:374) asso(cid:272)iated with a(cid:374) orga(cid:374)is(cid:373)"s i(cid:374)a(cid:271)ility to (cid:373)aintain homeostasis. Homeostasis: the ability to maintain physiological systems within certain limits across a range of external conditions. Role of evolution in shaping tolerance curves: this tolerance curve represents the tolerance limit of an entire population, the tolerance curves of individuals vary and some of this variation in genetically determined. If the environment changes, some individuals may be better able to tolerate the new range of conditions.