In: Biology
Explain how coevolution can be a force in competitive, parasitic and mutualistic relationships.
Solution
The term coevolution is used to describe cases where two (or more) species reciprocally affect each other's evolution.
So for example, an evolutionary change in the morphology of a plant, might affect the morphology of an herbivore that eats the plant, which in turn might affect the evolution of the plant, which might affect the evolution of the herbivore...and so on.
Coevolution is likely to happen when different species have close ecological interactions with one another. These ecological relationships include: