Bowling Pin Strategy

Biological Parallel

The Bowling Pin Strategy—dominate one niche, use it to knock down adjacent ones—mirrors adaptive radiation. Darwin's finches didn't simultaneously colonize all Galápagos niches; they started with one (large ground seeds), achieved dominance, then radiated into adjacent niches (small seeds, cactus nectar, insects, even blood). Each conquered niche becomes a beachhead for the next: morphological adaptations and learned behaviors from seed-eating transferred to cactus-feeding. Sequential specialization outcompetes simultaneous diversification because mastery in one domain provides transferable advantages. Knock down the first pin before targeting the next.