Acclimatization

acclimatization, any of the numerous gradual, long-term responses of an organism to changes in its environment. Such responses are more or less habitual and reversible should environmental conditions revert to an earlier state.

The numerous sudden changes that evoke rapid and short-term responses via the nervous and hormonal systems are not examples of acclimatization. An individual organism can regulate its internal processes rapidly to sustain itself within the usual range of environmental changes that it encounters hourly or daily. But this rapid regulation, or homeostasis, is limited in its operation to a small range of environmental variations. Homeostatic regulation usually cannot meet effectively large environmental changes such as those that would allow a plant or animal living in the warmth of summer to function in the cold of winter. As summer wanes, organisms change their substance and their habits in seeming anticipation of the coming winter. This gradual adjustment to conditions is acclimatization.

In contrast to changes that occur during growth and development, acclimatization, as defined above, refers to an adaptive change that is reversible when conditions return to their former condition. Acclimatization does not leave a lasting impression upon the genetic mechanisms of the acclimatized organism. The adaptation of populations to change that effects evolution by the selection of genetic capability is a different process from the acclimatization of an individual.

In dealing with acclimatization, the influence of climate upon life can be treated under headings of adjustments to temperature, humidity, salinity, light, pressure, and certain chemical substances in the environment. Because organisms do not have unlimited combinations of adaptations, they may use a similar process to adapt to changes of different origins. For example, in acclimatization to the low pressure of oxygen (hypoxia) in high mountains, animals, including man, improve the capacity of blood to transport oxygen by increasing the number of red blood cells (polycythemia); in the chronic disease emphysema, the inadequate supply of oxygen to the lungs is to some degree compensated for by a similar polycythemia.

Because animals and plants can be successfully introduced to new regions, it can be said that species do not necessarily thrive at their best potential in their native regions. Thus acclimatization does not invariably mean that a plant or animal is adapted to function at its maximum rate. In the hot summer, acclimatized birds and mammals often rest in the shade, and in winter cold some animals and all plants become dormant. At extreme limits an organism may suffer some impairment of vigour, but it survives; if the impairment is overt, acclimatization is considered inadequate.

Although acclimatization commonly requires modification of activity, the adaptive changes permit an organism to exploit regions of great seasonal variation and, on occasion, to move in wholly new environments. Only the individuals that acclimatize can survive to produce progeny from which a new population may become established. Ability to become acclimatized differs greatly among species of plants and animals. Some breeds of domesticated animals and cultivated plants are quite versatile in this ability, whereas others are narrowly restricted.

An interesting characteristic of seasonal acclimatization appears in animals and plants that become adjusted to cold beyond that which they are likely to encounter. Not only does acclimatization prepare them with a margin of safety but some microorganisms, insects, and plants tolerate experimental exposure at temperatures far colder or warmer than ever occur in nature. It seems strange that adaptability enables these organisms to be prepared to encounter conditions beyond their natural experience.

Another surprising characteristic of acclimatization is its anticipatory nature—it can develop before the change occurs. It would seem that anticipation of the need for change would be required in order to make the slow physiological preparations for climatic changes that often set in very suddenly. Anticipation of acclimatization seems to require a sense of time by which the coming environmental conditions can be predicted. Length of day is one external signal, but it seems to impinge upon intrinsic rhythms that provide clues from within as to the passage of time.

Although acclimatization refers basically to adaptation to climate, the term can also be used to describe the adjustments that a person makes to urban, social, or political conditions or the adaptation of a population of plants to conditions of cultivation or of an animal to the unnatural conditions of captivity. Adaptations to strange or artificial conditions, however, are often difficult to describe, and only in a few cases can such adaptations be compared with acclimatization.