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Arms races between and within species

1979/09/21 by Richard Dawkins, John R. Krebs, John Richard Krebs · 2,215 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Adaptation (eye) #Arms race #Biology #Coevolution #Competition (biology) #Cuckoo #Ecology #Evolutionary biology #Extinction (optical mineralogy) #Gene #Genetics #Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior #Interspecific competition #Intraspecific competition #Lineage (genetic) #Plant Parasitism and Resistance #Plant and animal studies #Race (biology)

paper · doi:10.1098/rspb.1979.0081

published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 205(1161), 489-511 (Royal Society)

openalex publication_date 1979/09/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

An adaptation in one lineage (e.g. predators) may change the selection pressure on another lineage (e.g. prey), giving rise to a counter-adaptation. If this occurs reciprocally, an unstable runaway escalation or 'arms race' may result. We discuss various factors which might give one side an advantage in an arms race. For example, a lineage under strong selection may out-evolve a weakly selected one (' the life-dinner principle'). We then classify arms races in two independent ways. They may be symmetric or asymmetric, and they may be interspecific or intraspecific. Our example of an asymmetric interspecific arms race is that between brood parasites and their hosts. The arms race concept may help to reduce the mystery of why cuckoo hosts are so good at detecting cuckoo eggs, but so bad at detecting cuckoo nestlings. The evolutionary contest between queen and worker ants over relative parental investment is a good example of an intraspecific asymmetric arms race. Such cases raise special problems because the participants share the same gene pool. Interspecific symmetric arms races are unlikely to be important, because competitors tend to diverge rather than escalate competitive adaptations. Intraspecific symmetric arms races, exemplified by adaptations for male-male competition, may underlie Cope's Rule and even the extinction of lineages. Finally we consider ways in which arms races can end. One lineage may drive the other to extinction; one may reach an optimum, thereby preventing the other from doing so; a particularly interesting possibility, exemplified by flower-bee coevolution, is that both sides may reach a mutual local optimum; lastly, arms races may have no stable and but may cycle continuously. We do not wish necessarily to suggest that all, or even most, evolutionary change results from arms races, but we do suggest that the arms race concept may help to resolve three long-standing questions in evolutionary theory.

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