http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/adaptations

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Adaptations help organisms survive in their ecological niche or habitat; adaptations can be anatomical, behavioural or physiological.

Anatomical adaptations are physical features such as an animals shape. Behavioural adaptations can be inherited or learnt and include tool use, language and swarming behaviour. Physiological adaptations include the ability to make venom; but also more general functions such as temperature regulation.

Behavioural pattern

Behavioural pattern describes an animal’s dominant way of life. Arboreal animals, for example, live in trees and nocturnal animals are active at night.

Air plant

Air plants, or epiphytes, complete part or all of their life cycle anchored or perched on another plant or structure rather than rooted in the soil. They obtain water and nutrients from dew, air moisture, rainwater and collected plant debris via adventitious (growing from the stem or leaf) and aerial roots. Epiphytes include many lichens and mosses, as well as 10% of all seed plants and ferns and over half the orchid species. This way of life isn’t parasitic, in contrast to plants like mistletoe, which ‘steals’ nutrients from the host tree.

Communication and senses

Communication and senses are how an organism perceives the world – for instance through scent or sight – and how it sends messages or warnings to others.

Chemical communication

Chemical communication is all about taste and smell. Plants use scent and pheromones to attract pollinators. Animals use scents and tastes for a whole variety of reasons, including scents emitted by female moths to attract a mate, alarm signals given off by bees when their hive is under threat and the territorial markers in wolf urine. Some insects, such as ants, lay down pheromone trails for their nest-mates to follow to food sources. Many animals have special scent glands for leaving these chemical messages.

Mimicry

Mimicry is when an animal or plant resembles another creature or inanimate object, either for defence or to gain other advantages. Pebble plants try not to be eaten by resembling stones, praying mantises hope to lure prey close by resembling flowers. The mimicking species may smell, sound or behave like the creature or object it is duplicating, not simply look like it. For example one type of firefly mimics the light flashes and pheremones of another in order to catch and eat it.

Visual communication

Visual communication transmits information to others through shape, colour and movement or body language. Animals can both send and decode visual messages, using colour and behavioural displays for messages as varied as threat, invitations to mate and identification of what species they are. Though plants can’t themselves see, they use visual cues such as colour to attract animals to their flowers and fruits. Visual perception differs radically among various groups of animals, from the ability to see in low light, to detection of the slightest movement.

Warning colours

Warning colours (aposematism) describes colouration and other markings that send a signal to predators to keep away, often because the owner is poisonous or simply tastes bad. Warning colours are usually two contrasting ones, such as yellow and black, in stripes or blobs for maximum impact to multiple species, since even colour-blind animals can see patterns. As this anti-predation strategy is so useful, some animals cheat. Eye spot patterns make them look like larger organisms or bright colours might warn away even though they are safe to eat. The hoverfly is striped like a wasp, but has no sting.

Reproductive strategy

Reproduction covers all the tactics and behaviours involved in obtaining a mate, conceiving the next generation and successfully raising them. It includes everything from plants being pollinated, to stags fighting over hinds, to lionesses babysitting their sisters’ cubs.

Asexual reproduction

Asexual reproduction is the production of offspring by only one parent. No fertilization of an egg cell or mixing up of the genes takes place, so all the offspring are genetically identical copies of the parent. Greenfly, hydras and strawberry plants can all reproduce asexually as well as sexually.

Flowering

Flowering is definitely the most successful plant reproductive strategy and has opened up nearly every habitat on Earth for colonisation. Usually brought on by a change in temperature or daylight, flowering is the reproductive stage of a plant’s life cycle. Flowers are designed to encourage the transfer of male pollen to female ovule, and the subsequent production of seed-bearing fruit. A remarkable variety of methods is used to attract insects, birds and even bats: from nutritious nectar to bright colours and scents – not all of which are pleasant. Less showy flowers are serviced by the wind.

Hermaphroditic

Hermaphrodites have both male and female sex organs, either throughout their lives (homgamy) or that develop and mature at different points in their life cycle (dichogamy). Most dichogamous species, including many flowers and fish, change sex only once in their development. These organism still need another individual at the opposite stage for fertilisation. Homgamous species may be capable of self-fertilisation, but generally two individuals exchange sex cells and both are fertilised.

Survival strategy

Survival strategies enable organisms to cope with particular stresses, from temporary environmental changes in the weather to the constant threat of predation. So, for instance, to avoid the cold of winter animals may migrate away or hibernate, while trees may shed their leaves. To avoid predation, plants may be poisonous or covered with defensive spikes and animals may use camouflage or travel in great numbers.

Poisonous

Poisonous animals contain or secrete toxins and need to be touched or eaten to contaminate their victim. This is different to venomous animals that actively inject a toxin into their the victim. There’s a wide range of often highly complex poisons in the animal and plant kingdoms, all of which are used for defense. These poisons can paralyse, stun, cause tissue death or outright kill their victims. The effects depend on the type and concentration of poison and the amount delivered relative to the size of the victim.

Shedding body parts

Shedding body parts, or abscission which means cutting away, is the process by which plants get rid of entire organs that have been damaged or are no longer needed. It includes the dropping of leaves, flowers and fruits such as in autumn when deciduous plants drop their leaves in response to the onset of winter. Fungi and even some animals shed body parts for different reasons. Lizards drop their tails when threatened by a predator, stags cast off their antlers after the rut and snakes shed their skins.