Question: What does adaptation mean?

Ricardo Ramirez answered on 17 Jun 2014:

It means that if the environment changes, the plant/animal will still be able to survive and be functional.

Lets suppose you decide to move house to a tropical country. The first days you will find it too hot and perhaps to humid. After sometime, you will adapt to the weather, and you won’t feel tired there. However, when you come back to the UK, specially in the winter, you will feel it is extremely cold! Or… you can even feel it across the year! 18 degrees in the winter feel warm, and the same 18 degrees in the summer are fresh!

Under the same idea, people plant seeds that are best for the weather were the farm is. In the case of crops, they may not have enough time to adapt in a single year (the time they live), as they had been selected over the years for the weather of the farm. If the temperature rises, different varieties of crops will need to be developed.

So, adaptation can be in a single organism to a changing environment, or across a species (which can be seen as evolution, as well).