Sopeutumistekijä

Sopeutumistekijä is a Finnish term that denotes a factor that contributes to an organism’s or system’s adaptation to environmental conditions. The word combines sopeutuminen, meaning adaptation, and tekijä, meaning factor or agent. In scientific usage, sopeutumistekijä is a general label for elements that influence how a population adjusts to changing environments. It is not a single mechanism, but rather a set of possible drivers or determinants of adaptive change.

In biology and ecology, sopeutumistekijä may refer to abiotic drivers such as temperature, moisture, salinity, and nutrient availability; biotic drivers such as predators, competitors, and mutualists; genetic and epigenetic variation; and life-history traits, as well as human-induced influences like habitat alteration or management practices. These factors can affect the strength and direction of natural selection, phenotypic plasticity, and gene flow, thereby shaping the rate and nature of adaptation.

Researchers may treat sopeutumistekijä as variables in models or experiments to assess their relative importance for adaptation, resilience, or range shifts. The term is used descriptively in Finnish scientific writing and does not imply a fixed, formal category beyond being a factor relevant to adaptation.

See also: sopeutuminen, sopeutumismekanismi, evoluutiobiologia, ekologia.