Forests disprove survival of the fittest
In a forest, well-being depends on community and diversity. It’s not a race to the top for dominance, but a web of interdependencies, that depends on even the supposedly “weakest” trees for survival.
It’s not survival of the fittest—their well-being depends on community. When supposedly feeble trees disappear, the others lose as well. The forest is no longer a single closed unit. Sun and winds can now penetrate to the forest floor and disrupt the climate. Even strong trees get sick a lot and depend on their weaker neighbors to survive. If they are no longer there, all it takes is a harmless insect attack to seal the fate even of giants. —Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees
- see also: diversity provides stability — the less diverse a system is, the more precarious and unhealthy it is
- previously: we are collaborative compound organisms, participating in something much more complex than the onwards driving version of history many of us still imagine ourselves to inhabit
- see also: we exist only in relationship to others
- see also: at every level we are a web of interdependencies, without uniformity or conformity