"as all organic beings are striving, it may be said, to seize on each place in the economy of nature, if any one species does not become modified and improved in a corresponding degree with its competitors, it will soon be exterminated." Charles Darwin, Origin of Species 1st edition (on Kindle)
One thing that Darwin does is bounce between competitors being other individuals of the same species or closely related species and competitors of any flavor. Here competitors are of any flavor. So there's two levels of competition: one within a species to leave more offspring and another level where the species itself is competing with other species.
"as all organic beings are striving, it may be said, to seize on each place in the economy of nature, if any one species does not become modified and improved in a corresponding degree with its competitors, it will soon be exterminated." Charles Darwin, Origin of Species 1st edition (on Kindle)
One thing that Darwin does is bounce between competitors being other individuals of the same species or closely related species and competitors of any flavor. Here competitors are of any flavor. So there's two levels of competition: one within a species to leave more offspring and another level where the species itself is competing with other species.
Hmmm. . .this strikes me as an early statement of something akin to the Red Queen Hypothesis.
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