Red Queen hypothesis

Meanings

1. An evolutionary hypothesis which proposes that organisms must constantly adapt, evolve, and proliferate not merely to gain reproductive advantage, but also simply to survive while pitted against other evolving organisms in an ever-changing environment.

Etymology

An allusion to a remark by the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass: Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. The hypothesis was advanced in 1973 by American biologist Leigh Van Valen, who called it the Red Queen's hypothesis.