STREET DOGS: Winner-take-all effect
What begins as a small advantage often leads to massively outsized rewards
From an article by James Clear: The Amazon rainforest is one of the most diverse ecosystems on earth. Scientists have catalogued approximately 16,000 different tree species. But despite this remarkable level of diversity, just 1.4% of tree species account for 50% of the trees in the Amazon. Imagine two plants growing side by side. Each day they compete for sunlight and soil. If one plant can grow just a little bit faster than the other, it can stretch taller, catch more sunlight and soak up more rain. The next day, this additional energy allows the plant to grow even more. This pattern continues until the stronger plant crowds the other out and takes the lion’s share of sunlight, soil and nutrients. From this advantageous position, the winning plant can better spread seeds and reproduce, which gives the species an even bigger footprint in the next generation. The process is repeated again and again until the plants that are slightly better than the competition dominate the entire fo...
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