Wildlife
Shedding body parts, or abscission which means cutting away, is the process by which plants get rid of entire organs that have been damaged or are no longer needed. It includes the dropping of leaves, flowers and fruits such as in autumn when deciduous plants drop their leaves in response to the onset of winter. Fungi and even some animals shed body parts for different reasons. Lizards drop their tails when threatened by a predator, stags cast off their antlers after the rut and snakes shed their skins.
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Autumn colours
The changing colours of autumn in a British woodland.
Most of our native trees in Britain are deciduous. So as days get shorter and sunlight less abundant, valuable chlorophyll is reabsorbed to reveal the red and yellow pigments that give autumn its golden glow.
Parallel pacing
Fallow deer bucks strut shoulder to shoulder to size each other up.
Fallow deer bucks strut shoulder to shoulder to size each other up.
Changing colour
From a hot air balloon presenter Martin Hughes-Games explains why leaves change colour in autumn.
From a hot air balloon presenter Martin Hughes-Games explains why leaves change colour in autumn.
Science with Chris: Abscission
Chris Packham explains why deciduous trees dump their leaves on the ground every autumn
Chris Packham explains why deciduous trees dump their leaves on the ground every autumn
Abscission (from the Latin ab meaning away and scindere meaning to cut) is a term used in several areas of biology. In plant sciences it most commonly refers to the process by which a plant drops one or more of its parts, such as a leaf, fruit, flower or seed. In zoology the term may be used to describe the intentional shedding of a body part, such as the shedding of a claw husk, or the autotomy of a tail to evade a predator. In mycology it may refer to the liberation of a fungal spore. In cell biology abscission refers to the separation of two daughter cells at the completion of cytokinesis.
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Other Survival strategy behaviours
Take a trip through the natural world with our themed collections of video clips from the natural history archive.
Wild autumn
Autumn - a time of great change, of breathtaking migrations, of high drama.
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Arctic poppy 
Beeches and oaks 
Blackberry 
Common beech 
English elm 
English oak 
Hawthorn 
Horse chestnut 
St John's wort 
Sycamore 
Elk
Fallow deer
Irish elk
Milu
Muntjac deer
Pronghorn antelope
Red deer
Reindeer
Roe deer
Sika deer
Mandarin duck
Kingfisher
Common Lizard
Shingleback skink
Slow worm
Sunflower star