This definitions covers Key Definitions within Competition Adaptations for GCSE Biology. Topic 2: Competition Adaptations It is section 8 of 14 in this topic. Make sure you can use the exact wording confidently, because definition marks are often lost through vague language.
Topic position
Section 8 of 14
Practice
15 questions
Recall
20 flashcards
Key Definitions
Competition: The struggle between organisms for a limited resource (food, water, space, light, or mates) that both need to survive and reproduce.
Intraspecific competition: Competition between individuals of the same species; always more intense because they have identical resource requirements.
Interspecific competition: Competition between individuals of different species that share overlapping resource needs.
Adaptation: An inherited feature (structural, behavioural, or functional) that makes an organism well suited to its environment, increasing its chance of survival and reproduction.
Structural adaptation: A physical feature of an organism's body that aids survival (e.g., thick blubber in polar bears for insulation).
Behavioural adaptation: An action or pattern of behaviour that aids survival (e.g., migration to avoid food scarcity in winter).
Functional (physiological) adaptation: An internal biochemical or physiological process that aids survival (e.g., production of concentrated urine in desert animals to conserve water).
Extremophile: An organism adapted to survive in extreme environmental conditions such as very high temperature, high pressure, high salinity, or extreme pH.