Listening notes: What are the three forms of survival competition?

Survival competition is the most misunderstood evolutionary thought. The meaning of survival competition can be very simple. There are a group of biological individuals with natural differences in nature. They all want to survive and reproduce. However, there is a contradiction between the selfish instinct of organisms and the lack of environmental resources, which leads to fierce competition among organisms for sunlight, air and water, food, habitat, mating objects and so on. It's not hard to understand.

But how does this competition work?

I think it's easy for you to think of naked and bloody fighting scenes in nature. On the African grassland, two antelopes face each other, with their heads down, ready to pierce each other's throats with sharp horns. In the tropical rain forest, gorillas roared loudly and beat their chests and feet, claiming the same territory. You will even think of similar scenes in the human world, the invasion of weak countries by powerful countries, the expansion of backward civilizations by advanced civilizations, and the hatred and wars between races for thousands of years.

/kloc-At the end of 0/9, when the Evolution translated by Mr. Yan Fu was officially published, it was the defeat of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, and a generation of elite intellectuals were worried about the decline of the country and the national peril, and that China could not stand on its own feet among the nations of the world. Mr. Yan Fu summed up Huxley's thought into eight striking characters-"Natural selection, survival of the fittest", which directly poked the pain point, and immediately reminded everyone of the scene of the world's powerful countries competing for each other and the jungle, as well as the urgent need for China to save the nation and survive.

This association in turn affects our understanding of evolution. Speaking of survival competition, we habitually understand it as this bloody and naked confrontation with the ultimate goal of destroying each other. But in fact, this is a misunderstanding of the competition for survival, which has produced quite serious consequences.

Three forms of survival competition

In fact, Darwin made it very clear in the Origin of Species that there is not only one form of survival competition, and even Darwin avoided using the emotional word "competition". His original text is "Struggle for Survival", which literally translates as "Struggle for Survival". More specifically, in Darwin's view, there are three forms of survival competition-intraspecific competition, interspecific competition and environmental competition.

Intraspecific competition is indeed the naked competitive relationship that we are most familiar with.

You may have heard a joke: two people were traveling on the African grassland when a lion suddenly appeared and they ran away. One man panted and asked another man, Why do you run so fast? How much faster can you be than a lion? Another man said, I don't need to be faster than a lion, I just need to be faster than you.

Although this is a joke, it is a typical intraspecific competition. Because two individuals of the same species have almost the same living environment, ability endowment and living pressure, their living space and living opportunities are highly overlapping, which is likely to be either one or the other, so the competition between them is very fierce. This kind of fierceness may be manifested in direct confrontation, with some losing and some winning.

When it comes to interspecific competition, that is, competition between two species, the appearance is completely different. The competitive relationship will become very complicated and even secret.

Predation and prey, parasitism and parasitism are all ways of coexistence and competition between different species. These are also easy to understand. What is particularly worth mentioning is the "* * * relationship". Like in the ocean? Fish can rely on the sucker above their heads to adsorb on sharks and whales, and then dive into the deep sea with them to eat the leftovers left by their prey. This is the so-called "selfish but harmless relationship". For another example, lichens growing in mountainous areas and polar regions are actually the * * * life bodies of lichens and fungi. Lichen provides nutrition for fungi, and fungi provide protection for lichen. The cooperation between them ensures the survival of lichens in harsh environment. This is the so-called "* * * * relationship" that is good for you and me.

At a higher level, what is environmental competition like?

Broadly speaking, all external factors that affect the survival of living things are part of the environment, including other individuals within the same species, different species, sunlight, air, water, temperature and humidity in the environment. But here, for the convenience of discussion, we limit environmental competition to the relationship between a species and its inanimate natural environment, which makes it easier to cope with intra-species and inter-species competition.

Similar to interspecific competition, the forms of environmental competition are diverse and complex.

For example, living in the frozen arctic, animals adapt to the environment in various ways, and some grow thick fur to prevent heat loss, such as polar bears; Some have developed the skills of hibernating underground to avoid the cold, such as the arctic weasel; Others simply fly to the South Pole tens of thousands of kilometers away to avoid the cold of the Arctic winter, such as the Arctic tern. These are the ways they compete with the environment.

The reasons for the great difference in expression forms

Just introduced the definitions and examples of three kinds of survival competition. But just saying these, in fact, did not touch the core of three kinds of survival competition. Here, you might as well think about a question: since everyone is fighting for survival, why are the forms of intra-species competition so different from inter-species competition and environmental competition?

I think there are two important reasons:

The first reason is that the degree of homogenization of competition is different.

Individuals of the same species have a high degree of similarity in various characteristics, and their demand for environmental resources is also completely consistent. In this way, any slight difference in characteristics, such as who can sprint once more when animals are preying, who can be a few tenths of a meter taller when plants grow, and who can be a few tenths of a second faster when bacteria divide, may decide life and death. Therefore, in the head-to-head competition within a species, the way of competition among biological individuals is simple and rude.

When it comes to interspecific competition, the differences between competitors are obvious. As for environmental competition, the situation has shifted to living and non-living environments. At this time, the core of competition is no longer competition efficiency, but differentiation ability, that is, competition with unique competitiveness.

In the competition between species and environment, even if different species live in highly overlapping environments, live in the same area and eat the same food at first, they will gradually get out of touch and occupy a unique niche with the development of time, and then coexist peacefully to some extent.

We can use specific examples to illustrate this phenomenon of niche separation:

Zebra and gazelle, two kinds of herbivores, both live in African grasslands, with similar living habits and the same food source. In addition, "if they are not my race, their hearts will be different", intuitively speaking, the competition between them should be very fierce. But in fact, to a large extent, they stay out of it and live in peace. Because they have successfully separated their niche markets from each other—

Zebras mainly eat grass leaves, which are easy to eat, but have too much fiber and are not rich in nutrition; Gazelle mainly eats grass roots, which are unpalatable, but contain more nutrients. Therefore, these two creatures have developed abilities corresponding to their own food strategies. For example, zebras have developed long intestines to help absorb the nutrients of grass leaves, while gazelles' mouths and teeth are convenient for them to dig roots.

In this way, two creatures living in the same physical space actually occupy different niches, and there is no direct competition between them.

We can assume that at the beginning of interspecific competition, the niches of the two species are highly overlapped. However, under the pressure of competition, they have evolved different viability and occupied different niches. On the contrary, in overlapping niches, two species may not live well because of high-intensity homogenization competition. The superposition of the two functions has formed a situation in which different species try to avoid competition and strive for peace.

Intraspecific competition is different from interspecific competition and environmental competition. The second reason is that the carrier of the competition is different, which leads to different competition duration.

The carrier of intraspecific competition is individual organisms, and the longest competition time does not exceed the total survival time of individuals. In such a narrow time window, highly similar individuals in the same species have no time to develop any unique competitive advantage, and can only compete on the small differences in existing capabilities.

The carrier of interspecific and environmental competition is biological groups, even the whole species, so the competition lasts much longer. In a long time window, species can multiply from generation to generation, accumulate tiny "heritable differences", gradually develop unique survival advantages and find a unique way to get along with other species and the natural environment.

People's misunderstanding of survival competition

So far, three kinds of survival competition in the evolutionary sense have been introduced. Now, we can go back and talk about people's misunderstanding of the competition for survival.

When the theory of evolution first entered China, the competition for survival was narrowly understood by the elites in China as the intra-species competition relationship of "the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest", and extended to the competition among countries, nations and nations. In fact, this misunderstanding is not confined to China elites. 1At the end of the 9th century and the beginning of the 20th century, this one-sided understanding of intra-species competition, the so-called "social Darwinism", once brought profound disasters to the whole world, providing an ideological basis for invading weak countries, slaughtering backward ethnic groups and discriminating against disabled people.

In fact, just around us, similar ideas still have tenacious vitality.

In today's business world, the understanding of competition by business elites often stays at the level of intra-species competition. Accustomed to treating all new companies as potential competitors, emphasizing efficiency first, and using capital as a weapon to set off one business war after another.

Through this lecture, I believe you can understand that winning intraspecific competition is the basis of individual survival, but if any species wants to survive and prosper for a long time, the more important mission is to find a unique niche, develop unique survival skills, and get along well with other species and the natural environment.

To sum up:

1. There are three forms of biological survival competition: intraspecific competition, interspecific competition and environmental competition. Intraspecific competition is naked competition. However, the relationship between interspecific competition and environmental competition and biology is very complicated, diverse and secret.

2. Compared with interspecific competition and environmental competition, the ways of intraspecific competition are quite different. There are two reasons: first, the degree of homogenization of competition is different; Second, different competition carriers lead to different competition duration.

3. Winning intraspecific competition is the basis of individual survival, but it is more important to find a unique niche and live in harmony with other species and the environment in order to survive and prosper for a long time.