Red Queen Hypothesis

Origins of the hypothesis

The Red Queen hypothesis was proposed by evolutionary biologist Leigh Van Valen in his 1973 paper "A New Evolutionary Law." Analyzing the fossil record, he found that across many groups the probability that a taxon goes extinct is roughly constant regardless of how long it has already existed: long-lived groups do not become safer. Van Valen attributed this to the fact that an organism's environment consists largely of other organisms. When one species improves, the environment worsens for its competitors, predators and parasites, so every species must keep evolving to maintain its relative fitness. The name comes from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1871), where the Red Queen tells Alice that "it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." The idea is closely tied to coevolution.

Arms races and sex

Classic examples of Red Queen dynamics are evolutionary arms races between predators and prey and between hosts and parasites (Dawkins and Krebs, 1979). If cheetahs get faster, gazelles must too; if plants produce toxins, herbivorous insects evolve detoxification. The hypothesis is also used to explain why sexual reproduction exists. Sex carries a "twofold cost" of producing males, but Jaenike (1978), Hamilton (1980) and Bell (1982) argued that fast-evolving parasites target common host genotypes, so sex, which shuffles genes to create rare combinations, is favored. Because adapting to parasites means chasing an ever-moving target, this is a form of frequency-dependent natural selection.

Evidence and extensions

Curtis Lively (1987) showed that in New Zealand freshwater snails the share of sexual individuals is higher in lakes with more parasites. Morran et al. (2011) evolved the nematode C. elegans with a bacterial pathogen and found that self-fertilizing populations went extinct and outcrossing was maintained when the pathogen coevolved. Decaestecker et al. (2007) revived dormant stages of water fleas and their parasites from pond sediment to reconstruct coevolution over time, and Paterson et al. (2010) showed that coevolution between bacteria and viruses accelerates molecular evolution. Benton (2009) contrasted the Red Queen with the "Court Jester" hypothesis, in which abiotic factors such as climate and tectonics drive diversity over long geological spans, concluding that the Red Queen matters most at short time and local spatial scales. The concept has also moved into management: Barnett and Hansen (1996) analyzed an "organizational Red Queen" in which firms learn from competition and grow stronger together.

FAQ

Where does the name Red Queen hypothesis come from?

From Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, where the Red Queen tells Alice it takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place.

How is the Red Queen hypothesis related to sex?

It is used to argue that because fast-evolving parasites attack common genotypes, sexual reproduction, which creates new gene combinations, is favored despite its costs.

Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26

References

1. Van Valen, L. (1973). A new evolutionary law. Evolutionary Theory, 1, 1–30.
2. Carroll, L. (1871). Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. London: Macmillan.
3. Hamilton, W. D. (1980). Sex versus non-sex versus parasite. Oikos, 35(2), 282–290.
4. Bell, G. (1982). The Masterpiece of Nature: The Evolution and Genetics of Sexuality. Berkeley: University of California Press.
5. Jaenike, J. (1978). An hypothesis to account for the maintenance of sex within populations. Evolutionary Theory, 3, 191–194.
6. Dawkins, R., & Krebs, J. R. (1979). Arms races between and within species. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 205(1161), 489–511.
7. Lively, C. M. (1987). Evidence from a New Zealand snail for the maintenance of sex by parasitism. Nature, 328(6130), 519–521.
8. Morran, L. T., Schmidt, O. G., Gelarden, I. A., Parrish, R. C., & Lively, C. M. (2011). Running with the Red Queen: Host-parasite coevolution selects for biparental sex. Science, 333(6039), 216–218.
9. Decaestecker, E., Gaba, S., Raeymaekers, J. A. M., et al. (2007). Host–parasite 'Red Queen' dynamics archived in pond sediment. Nature, 450(7171), 870–873.
10. Paterson, S., Vogwill, T., Buckling, A., et al. (2010). Antagonistic coevolution accelerates molecular evolution. Nature, 464(7286), 275–278.
11. Barnett, W. P., & Hansen, M. T. (1996). The Red Queen in organizational evolution. Strategic Management Journal, 17(S1), 139–157.
12. Benton, M. J. (2009). The Red Queen and the Court Jester: Species diversity and the role of biotic and abiotic factors through time. Science, 323(5915), 728–732.
13. Ridley, M. (1993). The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. London: Viking.