Co-Evolution of Species

Description

Gus Dizegera:

"Ecologies, whether biological or social, provide the context within which organisms become increasingly adapted to their environment, or fail to do so, as evolutionary theory explains. One important dimension of this connection is called coevolution, wherein two or more species evolve in ways where they mutually influence one another’s evolution, as have many flowering plants and insects. Coevolution involves symbiotic relationships of reciprocal influence, which take three broad and sometimes overlapping forms: mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism."

Typology

Gus Dizerega:

Mutualism

.. in its pure sense describes relationships where both parties benefit, such as the mycorrhizal associations existing between roots of higher plants and a fungus, between bees and flowering plants, and between grazing animals and the birds accompanying them that feed on ticks and other parasites. Such relationships can be dynamic, transforming both over time, as with some ants that grow fungus for their sustenance. Today neither ant nor fungus can exist without the other. Mutualism in markets is common, as with businesses serving other busines

Commensal relationships

"describe when an organism benefits from another it neither helps nor hurts. Orchids growing on tree branches, lichens growing on tree bark and hermit crabs inhabiting the shells of dead snails are all examples. Automotive detailing shops are examples of commensual relationships. Car sales are probably unaffected by whether detailing shops exist, but these depend on the auto industry for their survival.

Parasitism

... "occurs when an organism benefits from its host at the host’s expense, usually without directly killing it. Normally parasites weaken their hosts, rendering them more vulnerable to death, but sometimes the host’s death is needed for the parasite to reproduce. The fungi that infect ants, turning them into ‘zombies,’ are such an example (Harmon 2009). Parasitism is easily applied to market ecologies, from malingering members of productive organizations to fraud and corruption that increase the costs of doing business without adding any final value to the outcome. One particularly interesting example is the lack of correlation between much CEO pay and their company’s performance, perhaps analogous to those parasites that take over the behavior of their hosts to their own benefit (Bebchuk 2006; see also Scott 2017, p. 117). "

"These categories are not rigid. Over different timescales, a lineage of biological symbionts may make the transition from parasitism to mutualism, and then back again to parasitism. This may occur over evolutionary timescales, or within the lifetime of the symbiont itself (Leung 2008, p. 111). The same can hold true in social ecologies, as when an organization created to perform a task, redefines its task in terms of what is good for the organization, even at the expense of its original reason to exist, as with the Red Cross and its self-interested handling of a devastating earthquake in Haiti (Sullivan 2016; Elliott 2015)."

(https://cosmosandtaxis.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/dizerega_ct_vol8_iss10_11.pdf)