BISC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Soil Structure, Natural Selection, Life Zone

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Biological Sciences
• Course: BISC 100
• Professor: Leah Bendell- Young

Document Summary

Inorganic nutrients: the distribution and abundance of photosynthetic organisms depend on the availability of inorganic nutrients such as compounds of nitrogen and phosphorus. Soil structure, ph, and nutrient content often play major roles in determining the distribution of plants. Events that occur in the short term, during the course of an individual"s lifetime, may translate into effects over the longer scale of evolutionary time. An individual"s abilities to adjust to environmental changes that occur during its lifetime are themselves adaptations refined by natural selection. For example, birds may adjust to cold by migrating to warmer regions (a behavioral response), grow heavier feathers (an anatomical response), or fluff up their feathers to trap more heat (a physiological response). The ability to acclimate is generally related to the range of environmental conditions a species naturally experiences. Among vertebrates, birds and mammals can generally tolerate the greatest temperature extremes because they are endotherms.