Introduced Species
When a species has not been subject to an arms race previously, it may be at a severe disadvantage and face extinction well before it could ever hope to adapt to a new predator, competitor, etc. This should not seem surprising, as one species may have been in evolutionary struggles for millions of years while the other might never have faced such pressures. This is a common problem in isolated ecosystems such as Australia or the Hawaiian Islands. In Australia, many invasive species, such as cane toads and rabbits, have spread rapidly due to a lack of competition and a lack of adaptations to cane toad bufotenine on the part of potential predators. Introduced species are a major reason why some indigenous species become endangered or even extinct, as was the case with the dodo.
Read more about this topic: Evolutionary Arms Race
Famous quotes containing the words introduced and/or species:
“... it was not very unusual at Washington for a lady to take the arm of a gentleman, who was neither her husband, her father, nor her brother. This remarkable relaxation of American decorum has been probably introduced by the foreign legations.”
—Frances Trollope (1780–1863)
“Both classically- and romantically-minded spirits—inasmuch as these two species always exist—occupy themselves with a vision of the future: but the former do so out of a strength of their age, the latter out of its weakness.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)