It gets complicated

 Phenotypic plasticity is the organisms ability to change any of their phenotypic traits ( such as color or height)in order to adapt to the change in their environment. A scientist could determine weather or not a trait is plastic by changing different conditions in the environment or moving the organism to a completely different environment and observing how that organism may change. 

As an example, lets say we have a special species of giraffes, these giraffes are well suited for reaching grass and leafs on short bushes, but lets say for some reason the environment around the giraffes changes and grass and small bushes become scarce. In order for the giraffes to survive their necks elongate just enough so that they are able to reach the leafs on a tree. This would make the length of the giraffes neck a plastic trait.




Comments

  1. Alissa AOctober 23, 2022 at 6:40 PM

    Hi! I really like your illustration of phenotypic plasticity and how you describe it.

    ReplyDelete

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