SC.5.L.15.1 Survival of Living Things

SC.5.L.15.1: Describe how, when the environment changes, differences between individuals allow some plants and animals to survive and reproduce while others die or move to new locations.

What are Slow Changes in the Environment?

Some changes in the environment happen quickly, and some happen slowly. Seasonal changes in an environment happen over a period of months. The changes in Florida’s climate from a dry grassland during the last ice age ago to a hot, wet, subtropical climate happened over thousands of years. Rain patterns can shift, and climate can change over many decades.

When the conditions in an environment changes, differences between individuals allow some plants and animals to survive and reproduce while other die or move to new locations. Ten thousand years ago, the last ice age caused Earth’s oceans to be much lower than they are today. Water was stored in the glaciers that cover much of North America. Florida was nearly twice as large as it is today. What was once dry land in Florida is now the bottom of the ocean, extending as far as sixty miles into the Gulf of Mexico.

When the ice age ended and Earth’s climate warmed, the large animals that lived in Florida had much less land available. Rain patterns changed, and Florida began to change to a wetter climate with different plants that before. Most experts agree that these changes, along with the presence of human hunters in Florida beginning twelve thousand years ago, drove the large animals such as mammoths and saber-toothed cats to extinctions. Those animals, and many other, were unable to survive in an environment that was slowly changing as the ice melted.