Maladaptation
Encyclopedia
A maladaptation is a trait
Trait
Trait may refer to:* Trait, a characteristic or property of some object* Trait , which involve genes and characteristics of organisms* Trait theory, an approach to the psychological study of personality...

 that is (or has become) more harmful than helpful. It is a term used when discussing both humans and animal
Animal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...

s in fields such as evolutionary biology, biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 (where it applies to behaviors and other learned survival mechanisms), sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

, and other fields where adaptation and responsive change may occur. Like adaptation, it may be viewed as occurring over geological time, or within the lifetime of one individual or a group.

It can also signify an adaptation that, whilst reasonable at the time, has become less and less suitable and more of a problem or hindrance in its own right, as time goes on. This is because it is possible for an adaptation to be poorly selected or become less appropriate or even become on balance more of a dysfunction
Dysfunction
Dysfunction can refer to:* Abnormality * Dysfunctional family* Sexual dysfunction* Dysfunction , an album by the rock band Staind...

 than a positive adaptation, over time.

Note that the concept of maladaptation, as initially discussed in a late 19th century context, is based on a flawed view of evolutionary theory. It was believed that an inherent tendency for an organism's adaptations to degenerate
Degeneration
The idea of degeneration had significant influence on science, art and politics from the 1850s to the 1950s. The social theory developed consequently from Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution...

 would translate into maladaptations soon become crippling if not "weeded out" (see also Eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...

). In reality, the advantages conferred by any one adaptation are rarely decisive for survival on its own but rather balanced against other synergistic and antagonistic adaptations, which consequently cannot change without affecting others.

In other words, it is usually impossible to gain an advantageous adaptation without incurring "maladaptations". Consider a seemingly trivial example: it is apparently extremely hard for an animal to evolve the ability to breathe well in air and in water. Better adapting to one means being less able to do the other.

Examples for maladaptations:
  • During periods of climate change
    Climate change
    Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

    , such as global warming
    Global warming
    Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...

     or cooling, species that were well adapted in the original climate may be maladapted to the new climate and die out, if they are prevented from shifting their range due to geological or man-made barriers.
  • Resistance to antibiotics is usually an adaptation/maladaption issue from the point of view of infective agents: the initial disease agents are well adapted to the physiological conditions of their host and can proliferate. When antibiotics are employed, those organisms that have no or little resistance against them are at a disadvantage. However, being able to detoxify antibiotics comes at a price: the mechanisms conferring antibiotic resistance (e.g. beta-lactamase
    Beta-lactamase
    Beta-lactamases are enzymes produced by some bacteria and are responsible for their resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics like penicillins, cephamycins, and carbapenems . These antibiotics have a common element in their molecular structure: a four-atom ring known as a beta-lactam...

    ) are rarely useful for any other purpose. Hence, energy that would otherwise be available to grow and reproduce is diverted for antibiotics detoxification. To an infective organism, it is thus a trade-off between being able to outgrow resistant strains in the absence of antibiotics, and being able to detoxify antibiotics if these are encountered. An evolutionary stable strategy strategy is thus not possible, if antibiotics are not used indiscriminately.

  • Dodo
    Dodo
    The dodo was a flightless bird endemic to the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. Related to pigeons and doves, it stood about a meter tall, weighing about , living on fruit, and nesting on the ground....

    s were able to cope with the climate conditions on Mauritius
    Mauritius
    Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...

    . There, during parts of the year semiarid conditions predominate, and plants produce relatively little biomass that dodos would have used as food (such as fruits), whereas in the wet season there is an overabundance of food. Dodos apparently adapted to this by building up fat deposits when food was plentiful, and adjusting their breeding cycle to climate conditions. Confronted with humans and introduced predators, this proved ultimately fatal: humans would believe the fat dodos good to eat and hunt them, or simply kill them for fun because of their funny appearance and awkward movements. The breeding cycle, which originally ensured that as little effort as possible was wasted in reproduction made them vulnerable to the introduced pigs and monkeys, as there was little possibility for a dodo whose egg had been destroyed to re-nest before the year's reproductive season was over.
  • See Ecological traps
    Ecological traps
    Ecological traps are scenarios in which rapid environmental change leads organisms to prefer to settle in poor-quality habitats.The concept stems from the idea that organisms that are actively selecting habitat must rely on environmental cues to help them identify high quality habitat...

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