"adaptive for" is correct and can be used in written English.
Example: The new software program is highly adaptive for various operating systems, making it accessible for a wide range of users.
Also, traits can be adaptations without being currently adaptive for a given organism.
Most adaptive for what, we might ask – proliferation of the species, or good ethics?
This is presumed to be adaptive for life in the tiny interstitial openings in sand and soil.
Many living artiodactyls have evolved features that are adaptive for life on open grasslands.
Ceremonies and the various arts they comprise may have been important and adaptive for early humans.
HIFs drive hypoxic gene expression changes that are thought to be adaptive for cells exposed to a reduced-oxygen environment.
In an example given by Dr. Cosmides, a scientist might argue that smoking cigarettes is "adaptive" for teenage girls because it causes boys to think they are cool.
It can be wonderfully adaptive for infants to be born into families that include multiple older generations who are invested in their survival.
A dinner companion said she had read that whatever genetic basis there was for attention-deficit disorder might have once been adaptive for hunter-gatherers.
Sometimes violent behavior may be adaptive (for example, in self-defense), in which case the prefrontal cortex will help plan an effective strategy.
This altruistic suicide can be adaptive for the colicin-producing genotype, but, as with our model, is only beneficial when the environment is spatially structured52.
