BioConcepts

coadaptationco-adaptation (fr.); Koadaptation (ger.)

• Adaptation of two or more things to each other, mutual adaptation. (OED 2012)
  category adaptation

  1803

  The nice co-adaptation of their [the eyes’] ciliary processes, which are covered with a fine hair, seems to afford the animal [the wombat] an extraordinary power of excluding whatever might be hurtful

  Basss, G. [1803]. [Abstracts from the journal of Mr. Bass]. In: Collins, D. (1803). An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, from its first Settlement, in January 1788, to August 1801. The Monthly Review 42 (Sept. 1803), 1-14: 10.

  1803

  Supposing these organs [of sense] as well as the other works of nature to be (however inexplicable realities, yet still) realities, we readily perceive their admirable co-adaptation

  Hylas (1803). [Observations on materialism, the ideal system, &c.]. Monthly Magazine; or, British Register 16, 9-12: 12.

  1859

  How have all those exquisite adaptations of one part of the organisation to another part, and to the conditions of life, and of one distinct organic being to another being, been perfected? We see these beautiful co-adaptations most plainly in the woodpecker and missletoe; and only a little less plainly in the humblest parasite which clings to the hairs of a quadruped or feathers of a bird; in the structure of the beetle which dives through the water; in the plumed seed which is wafted by the gentlest breeze; in short, we see beautiful adaptations everywhere and in every part of the organic world

  Darwin, C. (1859). On the Origin of Species: 60f.

  1982

  coadaptation 1: The evolution of mutually advantageous adaptations in two or more interactive species. 2: Selection by which harmoniously interacting genes accumulate in the gene pool of a population; internal balance; coadaption.

  Lincoln, R.J., Boxshall, G.A. & Clark, P.F. (1982). A Dictionary of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics: 50.