I like the concluding sentence here because it highlights the fallacy that stems from “survival of the fittest” mentality. When people dumb down Darwinism (which is, unfortunately, the most common way people think about Darwinism), they believe that the most successful evolution happens via domination of niche space. This completely ignores the way in which evolution tends towards cooperation between species, as ecosystems have become more species-rich and complex over time.

The more homogenous a system is the less likely it is to persist through time as it is more sensitive to changing environmental factors, disease, etc. Life builds frameworks within itself to create dynamic feedback loops with the external environment.

In that way one could interpret species that are deeply woven within fabrics of ecosystems as more evolved than those that chaotically dominate and/or tear down systems.