Many biologists now believe that it is the whole ecosystem that evolves and that the
process of evolution can really be understood only at the level of the total ecology. This has
important implications because it suggests that organisms do not evolve by adapting to
environmental changes or as a result of these changes selecting the organisms that are to
survive. Rather, it suggests that evolution is always evolution of a pattern of relations
embracing organisms and their environments. It is the pattern, not just the separate units
comprising this pattern, that evolves. Or as Kenneth Boulding has put it, evolution involves
the “survival of the fitting,” not just the survival of the fittest.