Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The process by which two or more interacting species evolve together, each changing as a result of changes in the other or others. It occurs, for example, between predators and prey and between insects and the flowers that they pollinate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun biology The evolution of organisms of two or more species in which each adapts to changes in the other

Etymologies

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Examples

  • There are many examples of 'coevolution', i.e. where the enemy and the victim influence each other's development in close interaction.

    innovations-report 2010

  • In other words, we need to model the “coevolution” of culture and genes.

    SuperCooperators Martin A. Nowak 2011

  • What resulted as each component moved in step with one another was coevolution, a spiral toward more and more social complexity as language allowed for even more manipulation and deception, and ever more collaboration and cooperation too.

    SuperCooperators Martin A. Nowak 2011

  • Yet each artsy trait is the result of "coevolution for evaluation": It starts out as arbitrary until someone starts to like it.

    How Artistry Evolved Jennie Erin Smith 2011

  • Thanks to the new invention of widespread indirect reciprocity, coevolution bootstrapped the evolution of the social brain of that remarkable creature, Homo sapiens.

    SuperCooperators Martin A. Nowak 2011

  • However, once it is accepted that the code's history records more than one effect (for example, it is stereochemical but evolved along pathways also), uncertainty about the specific pathways to be chosen for partial coevolution makes it difficult to estimate a fraction of the code potentially attributable to coevolutionary codon assignment (see Coevolution above).

    An Interesting Pattern 2008

  • However, once it is accepted that the code's history records more than one effect (for example, it is stereochemical but evolved along pathways also), uncertainty about the specific pathways to be chosen for partial coevolution makes it difficult to estimate a fraction of the code potentially attributable to coevolutionary codon assignment (see Coevolution above).

    An Interesting Pattern 2008

  • There are several hypotheses of concern on the origin of the genetic code; frozen accident, stereochemistry, coevolution, and translation-error.

    Chunkdz Comes Out Smokin 2008

  • Global Metal has rich insights on the coevolution of nation-states in the world system, the challenges of market design, indigenous and hybrid responses to globalisation, and new voices on old debates in heavy metal subcultures.

    Global Metal | Disinformation 2008

  • Apparently the notion of “coevolution” is foreign to the UD poster.

    The Panda's Thumb: Evolution of Creationism Archives 2010

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