Battling Cockatoo , Arms Race of The Supremacy

As We are not the only species living on this big blue planet, we have to learn to coexist with other tenants of this planet like any other species do. Interactions between species or groups of organisms, both cooperative and antagonistic, can be powerful generators of biological diversity. This interaction can lead to coevolution or an evolutionary arms race.what is the difference between those two? 

What is Coevolution?

Coevolution is a reciprocal evolutionary change between interacting lineages.

it’s when a species evolves, other species that are in close symbiotic relationships with those species must also evolve, while the evolutionary arms race is an evolutionary struggle between competing sets of co-evolving genes that develop adaptations and counter-adaptations against each other. An evolutionary arms race is mostly common in predator and prey relationships.

Coevolution in Cockatoo

Recently there’s an article about humans competing with the cockatoo, almost similar to an arms race situation. This article by Jerry Owings for Daily How basically is about groups of Cockatoo that outsmart people around the suburb of Sydney, Australia. A behavioral ecologist at the University of Cincinnati, Elizabeth Hobson says ” they (Cockatoo) are quite cognitively flexible in terms of problem-solving, they can learn from each other and they can innovate.”

Somehow the cockatoos got creative and innovative to open the dumpster can, even though people who live around that area also find more and more ways to prevent that from happening. in the article, it said, to confirm an arms race in Greater Sydney, researchers will need to go back to birds. Now that they know that cockatoos can defeat at least one human defense, they need a bird’s-eye view of a climb back and forth. “We need to do more work to show how birds are learning to defeat those measures,” says Aplin, “and whether they can also continue to respond…as humans increase the effectiveness” of their own strategies.

Symmetrical VS Asymmetrical Arms Races Differences 

There are two types of arms race symmetrical and asymmetrical arms races. symmetrical arms race the co-evolving species are changing in the same way. Usually, a symmetrical arms race is a result of competition over a resource in an area that is limited. An example of this is trees growing taller as a result of competition for light, where the selective advantage for either species is increased height. While asymmetrical arms race will result in the species adapting in different ways. Mainly asymmetrical arms races come from a predator-prey relationship of some sort. In this case, fruit flies versus mustard plants is the example. The flies’ larvae will burrow tunnels through the plant’s leaves while eating the juices they produce. to prevent this mustard plants produce a protein that inhibits digestion in the larval flies. When they eat it, they tend to die out or at least move a little slower. This has allowed the plants to survive even while they are being eaten by parasitic flies.