Question

How can coevolution lead to an increase in biodiversity?

Answer 1

Coevolution involves the evolution of two different simultaneously as each species affects the evolution of other species. This will result in a change of both species leading to biodiversity thus increasing the number of species.

Complete answer:
The process of natural selection when affects the process of evolution among two different species reciprocally to each other than this process is called coevolution. This may be due to the effects of two similar traits present in the different species that interfere with the evolution of each other. In 1859, Charles Darwin in his book Origin of the species discusses the evolutionary changes and interaction between the insects and the flowering plants resulting in the occurrence of evolutionary changes on both the species due to their reciprocal effect on each other. Later, this interaction between the two different species was termed coevolution. There were certain interactions that were developed by the plant pathologists to develop coevolution induced by humans through various breeding programs. The new crop varieties were developed by rapid reciprocal evolution to make them resistant to pathogens thus resulting in the development of a new variety of crops.
Later coevolution was observed in ants and acacias by H. Janzen showed and in between butterflies and plants by Peter H. Raven and Paul R. Ehrlich were all of them showed that the reciprocal evolution will affect the process evolution in all the organisms leading to the diversification of the species. This may lead to changes in sexual reproduction by evilution affecting their ploidy level, or effects the structure as well as functions of various communities of ecology.

Note:
The process of coevolution consists of various ways of interaction that includes competition, mutualism between species, the relation between predator-prey, or host-parasite. Coevolution is used in various other fields by researchers that include astronomy, computer science, sociology, etc.