Turns out the "red in tooth and claw" view of nature is not quite right. Cooperation is essential to life.
“In the more than a century since, symbioses have been found to play an essential role in the development and survival of almost every organism. Humans, animals, plants, coral and insects all depend heavily on microbes, which, in turn, depend on their hosts. Consider the gut bacteria that support human and animal health, the algae that power coral reefs, or the mitochondria that make our cells run. It turns out that these give-and-take relationships with the microbiome are essential to life on earth. They are so universal and paramount, in fact, that earlier this year, some scientists called for a wholesale remapping of Darwin’s Tree of Life to take them into account.”
Link to article:
https://medium.com/hhmi-science-media/symbiosis-its-complicated-f9578d3b4b9a
#ecology #biology #symbiosis #nature #ecophilosophy #science