Red Queen

The Red Queen is an allusion to a character in Alice In Wonderland. In the story, Alice comes upon a queen running along who implores Alice to run fast. Despite how fast Alice runs, she stays in the same place however because the landscape moves at the same pace that she is. The metaphor is meant to suggest a kind of treadmill where no matter how fast one runs, they stay in the same place.

The application to biology and evolution suggests an arms race between organisms of a given species for reproductive advantage. The effect is a kind of co-evolution whereby if one gains an advantage, it is eventually compensated through the advantages possessed by reproductive foes. One example of this is apparent in the co-evolution of disease and host. The host's immune system develops defenses against a disease, which forces the disease, through evolutionary pressures...