Luxuriant diversity

A rainbow of colour comes about in the fynbos from plants mixing it with species quite unlike themselves. The short and the long sometimes have to take turns, flowering in the years immediately after veld fires or later on when there are many mature plants. When everyone in the community manages to achieve some stature in the sun, the particular contributions combine to display such variety as seen here.

The hybrid word coopetition was coined to show how businesses simultaneously compete and cooperate in the survival stakes. It applies wherever living species occur in the same environment. Some arrangements do more than “pushing on the same side in the scrum”, such as all plants covering the ground, all contributing to cooling and stabilising the soil.

There are complex give and take arrangements in nature that solve problems and provide resources for unique specific needs. Whatever feature (or discarded waste) one living species presents into its neighbourhood, may be capitalised upon by a neighbour that evolves a strategy for its own need fulfilment.