Plants show finely tuned adaptive responses when nutrients are limiting. Gardeners may recognize yellow leaves as a sign of poor nutrition and the need for fertilizer. But if a plant does not have a caretaker to provide supplemental minerals, it can proliferate or lengthen its roots and develop root hairs to allow foraging in more distant soil patches. Plants can also use their memory to respond to histories of temporal or spatial variation in nutrient or resource availability. ​Research in this area has shown that plants are constantly aware of their position in the environment, in terms of both space and time. Plants that have experienced variable nutrient availability in the past tend to exhibit risk-taking behaviors, such as spending energy on root lengthening instead of leaf production.In contrast, plants with a history of nutrient abundance are risk averse and save energy. At all developmental stages, plants respond to environmental changes or unevenness so as to be able to use their energy for growth, survival, and reproduction, while limiting damage and nonproductive uses of their valuable energy.

The fragmentation of television audiences during recent decades, which has happened throughout the globe as new channels have been launched everywhere, has caused advertisers much concern. Advertisers look back nostalgically to the years when a single spot transmission would be seen by the majority of the population at one fell swoop. This made the television advertising of mass consumer products relatively straightforward ― not to say easy ― whereas today it is necessary for advertisers to build up coverage of their target markets over time, by advertising on a host of channels with separate audiences. Still, it is arguable that advertisers worry rather too much about this problem, as advertising in other media has always been fragmented. Moreover, advertisers gain considerable benefits from the price competition between the numerous broadcasting stations. And television remains much the fastest way to build up public awareness of a new brand or a new campaign. Seldom does a new brand or new campaign that solely uses other media, without using television, reach high levels of public awareness very quickly.

In a series of experiments, Venkat Lakshminarayanan, Keith Chen, and Laurie Santos at Yale University gave capuchin monkeys tokens they could use to "purchase" tasty apple slices. Despite never having taken Econ 101, the monkeys quickly learned how to use the tokens as money. But the researchers then threw in a clever twist: they gave the monkeys a choice between buying apple slices from two different people. Person 1 always showed one apple slice and gave it to the monkey in exchange for a token. Person 2, on the other hand, always showed the monkey two apple slices but gave only one of the slices for a token. From an economic perspective, both were offering the exact same deal: one apple slice for one token. But by first offering two, then only delivering one, Person 2 focused the monkeys on what they were losing — the second apple slice. The monkeys strongly preferred dealing with Person 1, even though Person 2 was offering, from an economic perspective, the exact same deal. Just like humans, monkeys hate to feel like they're losing out.