Another way of wording this / looking at it is in the trade-off between "adaptation" and "adaptability" (cf https://people.clas.ufl.edu/ulan/files/Conrad.pdf ht

Another way of wording this / looking at it is in the trade-off between "adaptation" and "adaptability" (cf https://people.clas.ufl.edu/ulan/files/Conrad.pdf https://people.clas.ufl.edu/ulan/files/Conrad.pdf ). Adaptability requires additional energy to maintain that -- in a steady state -- is wasteful. Being highly adapted to a particular niche/circumstance is fragile to change. There is an intrinsic trade-off. This is also mirrored in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficiency%E2%80%93thoroughness_trade-off_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficiency%E2%80%93thoroughnes...