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Rajnish Khanna

  • Biodiversity Journal, 15 (2): 115-121

    Ulrich Kutschera & Rajnish Khanna
    The Significance of Darwin’s Origin of Species 1872 and ecology of salt-marsh plants in Northern California, USA
    https://doi.org/10.31396/Biodiv.Jour.2024.15.2.115.121

    ABSTRACT
    In 1872, the 6th (last) edition of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species was published, wherein he had added a well-known section on Mivart’s criticism of 1871 concerning natural selection. Here, we describe Darwin’s ideas on “lower vs. higher organisms”, inclusive of his hypothesis of steady “perfection” and species co-existence during the evolutionary history of life. In addition, Darwin discussed evolution with reference to ecological interactions, proposed the concept of “competitive exclusion”, and, in our view, founded “evolutionary ecology”. These concepts were not addressed in the first, frequently quoted text of 1859. Therefore, we present Darwin’s ignored section with reference to a major recent paper on “Co-existence of plant species under harsh environmental conditions”, as well as our own observations on marsh vegetation in the San Francisco Bay Estuary. We conclude that “Darwin 1872” should be recognized as the definitive version of the “Species Book”, as recommended by the author himself and with reference to Letters published in the Darwin Correspondence Project-2023.