Interspecific Interactions / Co-evolutionary Dynamics — Mimicry, Myrmecophily, Co-evolution

Beyond the simple beneficial/harmful interactions, species that stay associated with one another over long stretches of evolutionary time can develop much more elaborate strategies. Mimicry is a phenomenon in which one organism evolves to resemble another organism (or object) in form, appearance, structure or behaviour, as a form of self-defence that improves its chance of survival, or — in the case of flowers — to improve its chance of being pollinated; mimicry arises through ordinary evolutionary mechanisms, i.e. random heritable mutation followed by preservation through natural selection. Floral mimicry usually functions to attract pollinators, as in the orchid Ophrys, whose flower closely resembles a female insect, tricking male insects into attempting to mate with it and thereby achieving pollination in the process. Animal mimicry, by contrast, is usually protective, as in the leaf insect Phyllium frondosum (which resembles a leaf) and the stick insect Carausius morosus (which resembles a twig). Myrmecophily is a mutual bodyguard relationship in which ants take shelter on certain trees — mango, litchi, jamun, Acacia and others — acting as defenders of the plant against disturbance while the plant supplies them with food and shelter in return; the classic textbook example is Acacia and its associated acacia ants. Co-evolution occurs when a long-running interaction between two organisms drives reciprocal genetic and morphological change in both of them over many generations — a kind of ongoing mutual adaptation. Well-known examples include the matching lengths of a flower's corolla tube and a pollinating moth or butterfly's proboscis (as in Habenaria and its mo …