struggle for existence
Life-or-death contest
The struggle for existence is the competition among living things for the resources needed to survive—food, territory, mates.
Darwin used the phrase to describe the engine of natural selection: organisms that win this struggle pass on their traits; those that lose it die without offspring.
The concept extends beyond biology to any fierce competition for limited resources: In the struggle for existence, small businesses often can't compete with corporations.
- povertySevere lack of resources
- hand to mouthBarely meeting basic needs
- daily breadEssential means of living
- human conditionUniversal aspects of existence
- natural selectionDifferential reproductive success
resilience · adaptation · inequality · perseverance · resource scarcity · predation · pecking order · law of the jungle · dog eat dog · survival strategies · adversity · carrying capacity · social Darwinism · niche · biodiversity · migration · moral dilemmas · life philosophy
- evolutionevolution, natural selection, mutation, adaptation, speciation
- Biology HistoryDarwin, Mendel, evolution, natural selection, cell theory
- DarwinCharles Darwin, natural selection, evolution, HMS Beagle, Galapagos
struggle for existencemutual aid
Cooperative community support
cooperation · symbiosis · mutualism · solidarity · altruism
struggle for existenceabundance
Ample supply, overflowing
plenty · cornucopia · land of milk and honey · Garden of Eden · prosperity
struggle, struggles, struggled, struggling, struggler, exist, exists, existed, existing