Human earth shapers/ETHS101/Ecology and Evolution/Response to Environmental Change

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The Four ways

The key ideas are:

  • The "four ways" explain how species and organisms respond to environmental change
  • Species can tolerate change in situ if the change is within their niches. Species can have broad niches in one dimension but narrow niches in another, which means that a big change for one species might be small for another species. Species may also tolerate some conditions outside their niches, but only for a short period.
  • Species can move to areas with suitable habitat. Species have different capacities to disperse. Some kinds of landscape (e.g. hilly ones) can make it easier to disperse.
  • Species can evolve (adapt) to be able to tolerate the change. Evolution is slow, and the rate depends on how much genetic variation there is and some other things.
  • Species can go extinct if they can't tolerate, migrate or adapt. Chance also plays a part because species usually become rare before they go extinct.

The future of life on earth really depends on which combination of the four ways each species follows!


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Environmental change

In this Learning Pathway, we ask the question: what happens to organisms if the environment changes. This mini-lecture explores the basic ideas that explain how species and organisms respond to environmental change (such as current climate change).



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