Ostracoderms v Fish is not a Red Queens Race. Fish won. Ostracoderms did not adjust and so did not stay in the niche. Inability to adjust is maladaptive.

Robert Tulip wrote:Ostracoderms v Fish is not a Red Queens Race. Fish won. Ostracoderms did not adjust and so did not stay in the niche. Inability to adjust is maladaptive.

I never meant that the ostracoderms specifically were an example of the Red Queens Race. What I was trying to get at is traits are selected by natural selection and that all ecosystem are in a constant state of change, albeit very slow, driven by the need to keep up. There is no space for maladaption in the theory of evolution. Maladatption means that something works counter to survival. Having a bony skull is still better than not having one. It's just not as good when someone else comes along that can bite through it.

But Saffron, you seemed to use ostracoderms as an example of a Red Queens Race in arguing against the existence of maladaption, when you said, in response to my comment about ostracoderms "The fact that another organism develops an adaptation that trumps another organism's adaptation does not render that adaptation maladaptive. Evolution is a Red Queen's Race; organisms must be in a constant state of keeping up."

An interesting thing about Shubin is his description of general laws in evolution. Your comment implies that the Red Queen Race is such a general law, that organisms inevitably adapt to stay competitive. In fact this is not the case. There are often winners and losers. Humanity is now in a Red Queens Race against microbes, having to run faster to stay even. However, if a superbug evolves that causes the extinction of humanity, the race will be over.

The point about ostracoderms is that they did have a trait (lack of a jaw) which worked counter to their survival, which is why they were maladaptive and went extinct.