Acclimatization is a reversible physiological and sometimes morphological adjustment of an organism to complex, naturally varying environmental conditions, occurring within an individual’s lifetime without changes to the genome. It involves modulation of existing cellular and systemic pathways—such as alterations in gene expression, enzyme activity, membrane composition, hormonal signaling, and organ function—to maintain homeostasis under new temperature, oxygen, salinity, photoperiod, or other abiotic regimes. Distinguished from genetic adaptation and laboratory acclimation, acclimatization typically proceeds over days to weeks, is often phenotypically plastic and graded, and its magnitude and limits critically influence organismal performance, stress tolerance, and ecological distribution.
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