Animal Survival Strategies
This adaptation helps animals blend into their environment to avoid predators.
What is camouflage?
Bright petals attract pollinators. Is this pollination or seed dispersal?
What is pollination?
A rabbit hears a loud noise and runs away. The loud noise is the _____.
What is the stimulus?
Bright flower petals are a part of the plan. Their function is to _____.
Attract pollinators.
A bird builds a nest before laying eggs. Why is this important?
Protects offspring → increases survival.
This behavior involves animals moving long distances during certain seasons.
What is migration
Seeds with hooks that stick to animal fur are using this strategy.
What is seed dispersal by animals?
The rabbit running away is the _____.
What is the response?
Some animals change their fur color depending on the place they live.
Why is this helpful?
Camouflage → avoid predators → survive and reproduce.
Dandelion seeds float in the air. Why is dispersal important?
Allows seeds to move away from parent plant.
This adaptation increases the probability of reproduction by attracting mates using sound.
What is matting call?
Wind carrying lightweight seeds is an example of what type of movement?
What is seed dispersal by wind?
Why is responding to stimuli important for survival?
Helps avoid danger, find food, reproduce.
Some birds produce specific sounds during breeding season.
How does this trait help reproduction?
Attract mates → increase chances of reproduction.
If a species cannot adapt to environmental changes, what might happen?
It may decrease in population or become extinct.
A mother penguin protecting and feeding her chick is an example of this survival behavior.
What is parental care?
Why are flowers important in plant reproduction?
They contain reproductive structures and attract pollinators.
A plant growing toward sunlight is responding to what stimulus?
What is light?
Some male birds have very bright feathers during breeding season.
Why would this trait be helpful?
It attracts mates and increases chances of reproduction.
Explain how adaptations are connected to reproductive success.
Traits that help survival → organisms reproduce → traits passed to next generation.
Explain how camouflage increases survival AND reproduction.
Avoids predators → survives longer → lives long enough to reproduce → passes traits on.
Explain the difference between pollination and seed dispersal.
Pollination = transfer of pollen
Seed dispersal = movement of seeds away from parent plant
If an organism could not sense changes in its environment, what might happen to its chances of survival? Explain.
It would not sense danger and its nervous system would not respond to the stimulus, so it could not react in time and its chances of survival would decrease.
Some flowers produce large amounts of nectar.
Why would producing more nectar increase the plant’s chances of reproduction?
More pollinators means more pollen is transferred.
A sudden environmental change causes most of the insects in an area to disappear.
What might happen to flowering plants in that area? Explain.
Fewer pollinators would lead to less pollination, which decreases reproduction and could cause the plant population to decline.