In the process of evolution, as a result of natural selection and the struggle for existence, adaptations of organisms to certain living conditions arise. Evolution itself is essentially a continuous process of formation of adaptations, occurring according to the following scheme: intensity of reproduction -> struggle for existence -> selective death -> natural selection -> fitness.
Adaptations affect different aspects of the life processes of organisms and therefore can be of several types.
Morphological adaptations
They are associated with changes in body structure. For example, the appearance of membranes between the toes in waterfowl (amphibians, birds, etc.), thick fur in northern mammals, long legs and a long neck in wading birds, a flexible body in burrowing predators (for example, weasels), etc. In warm-blooded animals, when moving north, an increase in average body size is observed (Bergmann's rule), which reduces the relative surface area and heat transfer. Benthic fish develop a flat body (rays, flounder, etc.). Plants in northern latitudes and high mountain regions often have creeping and cushion-shaped forms, which are less damaged by strong winds and better warmed by the sun in the soil layer.
Types of pathology
In accordance with the causes and characteristics of its course, maladjustment is divided into several types:
- Social adjustment disorder. With pathology, the patient cannot communicate with his usual circle of friends and acquaintances. He gradually moves away from them and retires. If the pathology is severe, the patient cannot be in society at all. He may not leave the apartment for months.
- Depressive adjustment disorder. The disease develops against the background of depression. A person is constantly depressed. They have no desire to communicate and gradually lose their usual interests.
- Mental adjustment disorder. A pathological process occurs in the form of an acute reaction to stress, which develops in the form of psychological shock. It is accompanied by various mental disorders.
- Prolonged adjustment disorder. The pathological process is characterized by a long course. The situation is aggravated when a stressful situation of varying severity appears.
- Anxious adjustment disorder. With this type of pathology, patients experience alarming symptoms under any circumstances.
- Mixed adjustment disorder. This form of pathology combines several of the above.
There are several types of pathology that are recommended to be determined in order to make the correct diagnosis of adaptation disorder .
Protective coloration
Protective coloration is very important for animal species that do not have effective means of protection against predators. Thanks to it, animals become less noticeable in the area. For example, female birds hatching eggs are almost indistinguishable from the background of the area. Bird eggs are also colored to match the color of the area. Bottom-dwelling fish, most insects and many other animal species have a protective coloration. In the north, white or light coloring is more common, helping to camouflage in the snow (polar bears, polar owls, arctic foxes, baby pinnipeds - squirrels, etc.). A number of animals have acquired a coloration formed by alternating light and dark stripes or spots, making them less noticeable in bushes and dense thickets (tigers, young wild boars, zebras, sika deer, etc.). Some animals are capable of changing color very quickly depending on conditions (chameleons, octopuses, flounder, etc.).
Adaptation in pedagogy
Trial and error is a major part of the adaptation process throughout the entire period of schooling. It is expressed in the selection of ways to solve a problem and weed out wrong solutions. An example is a process where, over the course of several years, a child needs to acquire various knowledge in order to subsequently use the information received in exams and move on to the next stage of education.
It is worth considering that this type of adaptation implies the ability to move from one area of activity to another. For example, from kindergarten to school, then to college and university. If a person does not meet the required behavioral characteristics, his adaptation is considered unsuccessful.
Biochemical adaptations
This type of adaptation is associated with the formation of certain substances that facilitate defense against enemies or attack on other organisms. This includes the poisons of snakes, scorpions, spiders and some other animals, which make it easier for them to hunt; antibiotics for fungi and bacteria that protect them from competitors; plant toxins that protect them from being eaten; odorous substances of bedbugs and some other insects that repel enemies, etc. This also includes the formation of enzymes that destroy pesticides and medications used by humans and lead to the appearance of forms of bacteria, fungi and other organisms resistant to these substances. Biochemical adaptations also include the special structure of proteins and lipids in thermophilic (resistant to high temperatures) and psychrophilic (cold-loving) organisms, which allows organisms to exist in hot springs, volcanic soils or permafrost conditions. (more about this in the article Biochemical adaptations)
Definition and types of social adaptation
It is not the strongest and not the smartest who survive, but those who quickly adapt to change.
Charles Darwin [1]
Every person repeatedly in his life is faced with the need to adapt (translated from Late Latin adaptatio - diligence, adaptation [3, p. 216]). For the adaptation process to proceed successfully, it is necessary to understand the essence of this process and master different adaptation strategies [17].
The largest direction in the study of adaptation is social adaptation, which is understood as the process and result of an individual’s active adaptation to the conditions of a new social environment [15, p.10]. This environment can be either a social group, work collective or family [7, p. 28], or an entire country, its culture, politics, ideology, current situation [11, p. 336].
Social adaptation is one of the most important functions of the social psyche (the object of social psychology) [16, p.95]. Therefore, one type of social adaptation is distinguished - socio-psychological adaptation, which in social psychology is understood as the acquisition by people of a certain socio-psychological status, mastery of certain socio-psychological functions [19, p. 219].
Depending on the level of socially active personality, researchers distinguish two types of socio-psychological adaptation: active and passive [19, p.221].
Passive adaptation involves adaptation at the level of conformity, that is, a change in behavior or belief as a result of real or imagined pressure from another person or group [4, p.58]. There are two types of conformism:
– external conformism (compliance), when people behave as is customary (in order to avoid punishment or earn reward), not agreeing in their souls with what they are doing;
– internal conformism (approval), when a person sincerely believes in what he is forced to do [6].
In any case, a person, during passive adaptation, accepts the conditions that the new environment offers him.
On the contrary, active socio-psychological adaptation occurs when a person strives to influence the social environment in order to change something in it that for some reason does not suit him [19, p.221]. In this case, the person clearly understands his personal benefits from joining new values and methods of social action [20, p.84]. Most often, such adaptation is associated with a person’s creative abilities, which help more successful adaptation and learning [14, p.4]. V. A. Petrovsky understands creative activity as a higher level of adaptation, promoting not only the external harmony of a person with the environment, but also the internal personal harmony of a person who is able to realize his personal potential without constraining himself to any framework, norms and restrictions [12].
However, active adaptation can also be negative when it is aimed at destroying an already established system and the proposed conditions. In this case, a person consciously resists the demands made, without offering anything in return, deliberately shocks others, trying to arouse interest in himself, or tries to assert himself at the expense of other, weaker people. Such human behavior most often depends on the desire to be individual, to stand out from the masses. But with this method of adaptation, a person loses more than he gains, although the needs that require survival continue to be satisfied [18, p.181].
Since a person does not always adapt to the conditions of the social environment that have changed not of his will, and sometimes he himself changes them (moves to another country, moves to another place of study, etc.), two types of socio-psychological adaptation can be distinguished on this basis: voluntary and forced.
Voluntary adaptation occurs when new values and methods of action that the environment suggests do not contradict the individual’s value system:
– the norms and values of the social environment fit into the system of the most significant interests and needs of the individual or even create more favorable conditions for their implementation;
– value orientations and norms of behavior previously characteristic of the individual change in new conditions without much stress.
With forced adaptation, the directions and methods of transformation do not correspond to the ideas and attitudes of the individual:
– without accepting the new, the person tries to change the demands of the environment, but these attempts are unsuccessful, and he has to obey;
– the individual submits without trying to change anything;
– new ways of social behavior correspond less than the previous ones to the qualities of the individual, but she is forced to use them in order to survive [19, p.222].
The most important signs of social activity are a strong and stable (and not situational) desire to influence social processes, real participation in public affairs, dictated by the desire to change, transform, or preserve and strengthen the existing social order, its forms and aspects [19, p.221] .
As a result of socio-psychological adaptation, a person always:
– coordinates its goals with the values of society;
– learns, while remaining oneself, to coexist safely in a given society;
– acquires the ability to take initiative, make the right decisions, and set goals;
– acquires new knowledge, skills and abilities and develops existing ones;
– establishes close, emotionally rich and long-term relationships with other members of society.
Therefore, the functions of socio-psychological adaptation include:
– achieving optimal balance in the dynamic system “personality – social environment”;
– regulation of communication and relationships;
– self-knowledge and self-correction;
– maintaining mental health;
– maximum manifestation and development of the individual’s creative potential and abilities, increasing his social activity;
– formation of emotionally comfortable positions of the individual;
– increasing the efficiency of both the adapting individual and the social environment and team;
– increasing the stability and cohesion of the social environment [10, p. 12].
Accordingly, the main goal of the socio-psychological adaptation of the individual is not its uniformity, transformation into an obedient executor of someone else’s will, but self-realization, development of abilities for the successful implementation of set goals, transformation into a self-sufficient social personality. Otherwise, the process of socialization is deprived of its humanistic meaning and becomes an instrument of psychological violence, aimed not at personal growth and not at achieving a unique individuality, but at the “I” [16, p.97].
In this regard, two types of socio-psychological adaptation are distinguished:
– progressive adaptation, which is characterized by the achievement of all functions and goals of complete adaptation and during the implementation of which the unity of interests and goals of the individual is achieved, on the one hand, and groups, society as a whole, on the other;
– regressive adaptation, which manifests itself as a formality during adaptation that does not meet the interests of society, the development of a given social group and the individual himself [9, p. 50].
Regressive adaptation is often described as comfortable, based on a person’s external acceptance of group norms and values. In this case, the individual deprives himself of the opportunity to demonstrate his creative abilities and cannot fully self-realize. Only progressive adaptation can contribute to the true socialization of the individual, otherwise a person develops a tendency to systematic behavioral errors, violation of norms, and the creation of new problem situations [16, p.97].
A. V. Karpov, V. E. Orel, V. Ya. Ternopol rightly note that the adaptation process is associated not only with the surrounding social conditions, but also with the conditions of specific activities, that is, the concept of the environment is differentiated according to the criterion of types of human activity [ 8]. These prerequisites made it possible to develop concepts operating with the concepts of “production” and “educational adaptation”, which reflect precisely the type of activity carried out by the subject, and are two more types of social adaptation.
Industrial adaptation is considered as the process of including an individual in a new production environment for him, getting used to it, mastering a professional role, production norms, and social relations. Subsequently, the development of this direction in line with organizational psychology and management theory led domestic authors to the development of the concept of professional adaptation [15, p. 11].
Original work:
Definition and types of social adaptation
Adaptations to extreme living conditions
Plants and animals living in deserts and polar regions of the Earth also acquire a number of specific adaptations. In cacti, the leaves have transformed into spines (reducing evaporation and protecting them from being eaten by animals), and the stem has turned into a photosynthetic organ and water reservoir. Desert plants have long root systems that allow them to obtain water from great depths. Desert lizards can survive without water by eating insects and obtaining water by hydrolyzing their fats. In addition to thick fur, northern animals also have a large supply of subcutaneous fat, which reduces body cooling.
Relative nature of adaptations
All devices are appropriate only for certain conditions in which they were developed. If these conditions change, adaptations may lose their value or even cause harm to the organisms that have them. The white coloration of hares, which protects them well in the snow, becomes dangerous during winters with little snow or severe thaws.
The relative nature of adaptations is well proven by paleontological data, which indicates the extinction of large groups of animals and plants that did not survive the change in living conditions.
The concept of adaptation. Types of adaptations of organisms. Adaptive Strategies
A. (adaptation) – the development of any characteristic that contributes to the survival of a species and its reproduction. Thanks to adaptation processes, the body adapts to unusual conditions when environmental conditions change. Adaptations can be: Morphological hell. include changes in the shape or structure of an organism. An example is the hard shell of turtles, which provides protection from predatory animals. Physiological hell. associated with chemical processes in the body. Thus, the smell of a flower can serve to attract insects and thereby contribute to pollination of the plant. Behavioral hell is associated with a certain aspect of the animal’s life. An example is a bear's winter sleep. Adaptation types: Passive hell. – vital activity slows down or stops, but the ability to restore ecological potency remains when favorable conditions return. Passive adaptation is inherent in plants. Active hell. – when external conditions change, the internal environment of living organisms remains constant. example of a bird. Mechanisms of hell. :- morphological associated with changes in body structure. For example, the appearance of membranes between the toes in waterfowl (birds); Mimicry is the coloring and body shape of harmless animals that imitate their poisonous counterparts. For example, non-venomous snakes look like poisonous ones. - physiological hell. associated with a restructuring of metabolism in organisms. For example, the appearance of warm-bloodedness in mammals; - Biochemical hell. associated with the formation of certain substances that facilitate protection from enemies or attacks on other organisms. snake venoms. - Behavioral hell. associated with changes in behavior in certain conditions. For example, caring for offspring leads to better survival of young animals and increases the stability of their populations. - Adaptations to periodic environmental factors. These are adaptations to environmental factors that have a certain periodicity in their manifestation. This type includes daily alternation of periods of activity and rest, shedding of leaves. - Adaptations to extreme living conditions. Plants and animals living in deserts acquire a number of specific adaptations. In cacti, the leaves have been transformed into spines to protect them from being eaten by animals. - The relative nature of adaptations. All devices are appropriate only for certain conditions in which they were developed. If these conditions change, adaptations may lose their value or even cause harm to the organisms that have them. The white coloration of hares, which protects them well in the snow, becomes dangerous during winters with little snow. Adaptive strategy is the selection of individuals characterized by correlated traits. It is based on the ratio of the costs of reproduction and maintaining life. MacArthur and Ohlson. r-strategy (reproduction) - weak competition, uneven population size, short life span, small individuals, large offspring, high rate of development, unpredictable environment (insects, rodents) k-strategy (survival) - predictable environment, acute competition, high life expectancy, large size, small number of offspring, slow development. (elephants) dN/dt=rN(kN/k), maximum number-level of Verhulst-Pierl. Genotype-totality genes of a given organism, phenotype-scoop. of all characteristics).Homeostasis-dry.structure.community at this level)
Biorhythms. Circadian and seasonal rhythms. Factors governing seasonal development.
Biorhythms are the activity of the body, its organs or systems, characterized by a certain periodicity (periods of rest and rest, daytime or nighttime activity, migration of birds or fish). The study of biorhythms makes it possible to identify the sequence of changes in the population structure of the biocenosis (aggregate of living, growing, microorganisms, fungi inhabiting a homogeneous living space) and thus use environmental resources in an ecologically competent manner. There are biorhythms not controlled by environmental factors (heart rhythm, respiratory rhythm) and controlled ones (photosynthesis, seasonal migrations of birds and fish)
Also distinguished: high-frequency, mid-frequency (circadian), low-frequency - more than 3 days (seasonal, lunar, tidal, annual.) Phenology - the connection between climatic factors. Circadian rhythms (circadian) were introduced by the concept of Halberg. It is a modification of the circadian rhythm with a period of 24 hours. They are congenital, that is, determined by the properties of the organism itself. Period c. R . lasts 23-28 hours in plants, 23-25 hours in animals. Ts.r. _ found in all representatives of the animal kingdom and at all levels of organization. Experiments on animals established the presence of CR of motor activity, body and skin temperature, pulse rate and respiration. The contents of various substances in tissues and organs, for example, glucose, were subject to daily fluctuations. All indicators of the nervous, muscular and digestive systems fluctuate in a circadian rhythm This rhythm determines the content and activity of dozens of substances in various tissues and organs of the body, in the blood and urine. The body's sensitivity to various environmental factors and tolerance to functional loads are subject to the same circadian rhythm Seasonal rhythms (characteristics of higher and lower organisms) - determined by the rotation of the Earth around the Sun. Seasonal changes in the Earth's vegetation cover, bird migration, and hibernation of a number of animal species are examples of rhythms with a yearly period. Seasonal fluctuations in physiological parameters in many warm-blooded animals to a certain extent repeat the daily ones: in winter there is a decrease in metabolism and motor activity, in spring and summer there is an intensification of physiological processes. An environmental factor is any environmental condition that affects the organism, at least during one stage of ontogenesis. The environment includes all bodies and phenomena with which the organism is in direct or indirect relationships. Environmental factors - temperature, humidity, wind, competitors - are characterized by significant variability. For example, temperature varies greatly on the surface of the land, but is almost constant at the bottom of the ocean. The same environmental factor has different significance in the life of co-living organisms. example, Light intensity has an effect in the life of phototrophic plants, but in the life of heterotrophic organisms (fungi and aquatic animals), light does not have a noticeable effect on their life activity. Environmental factors affect organisms in different ways. They can act as irritants; as limiters.
