Answer and Explanation:
The environment can change the characteristics of plants and animals through climate change and the composition of the ecosystem. Both plants and animals have their characteristics determined by the quantity and quality of resources that the environment can present. These resources are modified by climatic changes and by the composition of the ecosystem, which changes the amount of resources available to plants and animals, causing them to change, in order to survive these new resources. This change is made through the modification of animal characteristics, which adapt to the modified environment to survive.
Thus, we can say that the environment changes animals and plants through the availability of resources, while animals modify these characteristics through evolutionary processes that allow them to adapt to the new environment.