Biological adaptation is the evolutionary process through which heritable traits that enhance an organism’s fitness become more prevalent in a population over generations under specific environmental conditions. It operates primarily via natural selection acting on genetic variation, including mutations, recombination, and gene flow, and is constrained by developmental, genetic, and phylogenetic factors. Adaptations can be morphological, physiological, or behavioral and are typically characterized by increased survival or reproductive success in a given niche. The process is dynamic and context-dependent, such that traits advantageous in one environment may be neutral or deleterious in another, contributing to diversification and speciation.
Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have completed a spaceflight biology investigation aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that reveals how microgravity fundamentally alters microbial metabolism, ...
Space Exploration
Jan 26, 2026
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The problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has many health experts worried. As disease-causing bacteria adapt to some of our ways to reduce them, especially with antibiotics, it presents an arms race which we appear to ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 26, 2026
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Animal survival depends on effective attack and defense strategies, yet how these behaviors arise remains unclear. Addressing this question, a recent study shows that predator and prey behaviors emerge naturally as stable ...
Ecology
Jan 22, 2026
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Climate change has a wide range of effects on wildlife. It affects seasonal migration, reproduction times, body size and mass, and disrupts ecological processes, thereby posing challenges for the populations of some species. ...
Evolution
Jan 19, 2026
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641
On a frigid April day, Brock University Professor of Biological Sciences Glenn Tattersall, then-Ph.D. student Danilo Giacometti and wildlife researcher Patrick Moldowan ventured out into Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 19, 2026
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858
Indigenous communities have lived with changes to the climate for centuries. Their adaptations over those many years are based on their close observation of weather, water, soils and seasonal change, and they have been refined ...
Environment
Jan 17, 2026
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An international team of researchers, with the involvement of the UAB, has conducted a study that explains the evolutionary origins of the Dehnel phenomenon, a unique seasonal adaptation in small mammals that involves the ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 15, 2026
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102
Evolutionarily speaking, the ultimate goal of a lifeform is to reproduce and stave off extinction. Many plants and animals have evolved unique tricks to do so. One of these tricks is mimicry, which might be used to trick ...
Bacteria can sneakily evade our best efforts at eradication by developing resistance to various pressures in their environment, for example, antibiotic-resistant bacteria stubbornly survive the usual deadly effects of antibiotics. ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 13, 2026
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14
As the climate changes, scientists are concerned about how well plants and animals will adapt to rapid warming. A new University of Vermont study has explored the early embryonic life stage of a globally common fruit fly, ...
Evolution
Jan 12, 2026
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