Adaptations
An adaptation is a feature that helps an animal or plant to survive in the conditions in which they normally live. Remember, this feature will not necessarily help them to survive if they were to change habitat. Indeed, it could make things very difficult. Imagine if you were a polar bear who suddenly moved to the Sahara!
Here is a fantastic website on adaptations: BBC Nature
An extremophile is an organism that has adaptations that allow it to survive in extreme conditions. An example would be bacteria that live in hot springs which is possible due to their thermophilic (heat-loving) enzymes |
Types of adaptation There are 3 main types of adaptation: Physical or structural - an adaptation in the way an organism is shaped or coloured (eg. fur, ear size, camouflage, surface area:volume ratio, spines on a cactus) Behavioural - an adaptation in the way the animal behaves (eg. migration, use of tools by primates, beaching in killer whales, being nocturnal) Functional or physiological - an adaptation in the way the body works (eg. hibernation, making venom, frogs laying hundreds of eggs) |
TOP TIP: Remember that animals living in cold climates often have a small surface area:volume ratio (ie, they are large) whereas animals living in deserts are often small, thereby exhibiting a large surface area:volume ratio. LARGE animals gain/lose heat sllloooooowwwly SMALL animals gain/lose heat quickly |
BBC Bitesize contains nice revision notes on adaptations, an activity and a quiz. Check out how well you do!
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Here you can download revision notes that I have prepared for the Adaptations topic
I have also included notes for the Ambassadors session that we did
I have created a revision sheet for the life cycle of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium. Hopefully this will make this tricky topic a bit easier to understand. Just remember, the take-home message is that Plasmodium has a complex life cycle which involves being in different forms in the mosquito and the human, and that in the human it starts off in the liver before moving on to the red blood cell phase of infection.
Here is the animation that we saw in class: malaria challenge
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