What eventually happens to a species when the environment changes and the organisms do not adapt?
Answer (3)
The species can no longer survive in those conditions and become extinct.
If a species cannot adapt to environmental changes, it risks extinction. Successful adaptations may lead to speciation, whereas rapid or intense environmental changes can result in swift extinction and turnover of species.
When the environment changes and the organisms within a species do not adapt, the species faces the risk of extinction. If a species cannot cope with the new environmental conditions, it may fail to reproduce and survive, leading to its ultimate disappearance. This is a natural part of the evolutionary process, where survival of the fittest comes into play. Over time, successful adaptations can lead to the emergence of new species through a process known as speciation. However, if the environmental changes are too drastic or occur too rapidly, the result for a non-adaptive species can be swift extinction, contributing to the natural turnover of species on Earth. The history of life on our planet shows that multiple mass extinctions have occurred, which have led to the evolution of new species filling the empty ecological niches left behind.
When the environment changes and organisms fail to adapt, they may eventually become extinct due to insufficient resources and unfavorable conditions for survival. Adaptations are essential for species to cope with these changes, but if they cannot evolve quickly enough, their populations may decline and lead to extinction. This illustrates the critical relationship between species and their changing environments.
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