Acclimatization
From Encyclopædia
In biology, acclimatization, or acclimation, is a general term for the responses an organism exhibits as it adjusts to some long-term change or changes in its environment, or to being moved into a new environment. The term suggests climatic changes only, but acclimatization also includes the adjustment of wild
plants to cultivation and of wild animals to captivity, as well as any other situations involving such essential changes in environmental conditions.The degree to which a given organism is able to acclimatize has its bases in the genetics of the organism. For example, some
plants prove highly successful when introduced into a new setting, whereas others may grow under the new conditions but still require human
intervention to propagate. The acclimatization process itself is considered reversible, and its results are not genetically encoded for passing on to a new generation. Acclimatization thus differs from adaptation (see
adaptive radiation), the evolutionary process by which entire populations of organisms gradually change in their genetic makeup (see
EVOLUTION).
