Chapter 9--The Imperiled Planet

Learning from natural relations of the ecology and evolution of life.

When coupled, evolution and ecology provide a binocular view of how life adapts over time.

Binocular vision means a depth of field is possible.

Background | Outline | Argument | Evidence | Conclusions

The cycles of life, death, renewal & the re-creation of biocommunities.

Defining ecology: it's a problem.

Ecology is the study of the functions of living populations in the communities where they thrive and in which they are nourished.

Energy conversion in the form of food webs & the cycling of nutrients control growth.

outline | argument | summary

Outline

Confusing definitions of ecology
1. laws and functions
2. basic concepts are foundations
Argument
1. three universal categories revealed
2. warnings
Evidence
1. dialectical analysis applied
2. matrix reveals
3. six conditions of existence
Summary
1. What limits human growth
2. The concepts of optimal conditions, optimality, and stability

Stewarding the land, air, and water as the basis of life.

Edward O. Wilson. degrading

Defining ecology.

simple: the scientific study of an organism or species in its surroundings. [what a species is? breeding populations? other.]
complex: Ecology is the systemic science of the functional and fundamental relations among living organisms and the recycling nutrients needed for their reproductive success in the environment, milieu, or surrounding conditions of material existence on which they all depend.

laws | niche | trophic webs

Three laws of ecology dictate all life:

I To every action there is always an equal & opposite reaction.

II Whatever amount you start out with you end up with.

III Everything costs something.

Niche, three varieties, or ways to measure any creatures needs:

One is "spacetime address," range and life cycle.

Two is occupation, or means of acquiring a living.

Three is energy utilization over time in a place.

Trophic levels, mean that an organisms feeding behavior places a creature in certain observable and measurable levels in a food web based on the criteria of how they either make their own food or feed off of other levels:

Trophic pyramid
	levels
	top level predator
	carnivore consumers
	omnivore consumers
	Producers

Background | Outline | Argument | Evidence | Conclusions

Argument

There are powerful elements, forces, and factors unseen and understood as universal in our experience of nature:

Elements, Ninety-two naturally occurring atomic elements.
Forces, Three or four fundamental movers of all fluctuations we measure.
Factors, The inherited and acquired capacities of living creatures to actually reshape material conditions of existence immediately and for enduring periods of time.

"Nature is more complicated than we can think."

J. B. S. Haldane, evolutionary biologist.

"Nature bats last."

Because of the Four Fundamental Forces:
     Gravity is the latent force of matter that holds the stars and planets together.
     Weak nuclear interaction is 10²⁵ times stronger than gravity accounts for radiation.
     Electromagnetic is 10³⁶ times stronger than gravity holds atoms together.
     Strong Nuclear is 10³⁸ times stronger than gravity holds atomic nuclei together.

When these forces were discovered.

The game of life

Background | Outline | Argument | Evidence | Conclusions

Evidence

Six points emerge after dialectically analyzing nature

By dividing nature in two and then into two again we see the complexity emerge when we put the pieces back together:

The dialectical matrix of ecological science:
Four divisions		3. evolutionary	4. ecological
1.	inorganic	oxygen	iron & Ca
	HABITAT	oxygen	iron & Ca
2.	organic	five kingdoms	20 food crops
	BIOCENOSE §	five kingdoms	20 food crops

§ Biocenose is an association of different organisms forming a closely integrated community.

Six points:

1) Take a deep breath and hold you breath." We are co-conspiring.
2) habitats as the inorganic conditions (light, air, slope, temperature, elements, compounds, pH, water.)
3) biotic communities as the organic conditions (bacteria, vegetation, fungi, animals, parasites.)

where organisms exist

range of a species

biomass as the measure of productivity in a biome / biocommunity

4) Eutrophy & oligotrophy are divergent levels of nourishment-nutrient cycles
5) Synergy how the whole system is greater than the mere sum of the working parts.
6) biosphere as the totality of life on the planet in its systemic relations.
Background | Outline | Argument | Evidence | Conclusions

Summary

"…human beings are unlikely to be capable of assembling reasonably stable large-scale ecosystems"

We are instead an edge species (savannas, farms, woodland)

We thrive in disturbance and disturb large ecosystems with agricultural, mining, residences, and industrial facilities.

Duration of human disturbance is essentially a limitation.

limits of human dominance / disturbance are both:

A) carrying capacity density

quantity

B) assimilative capacity intensity

quality, timing or frequency, & distribution.

Optimum–where too little and too much hinder growth.

The status of–or most favorable condition for– is optimality.

There is a range withing which all creatures thrive; so too the recovery time necessary to re-establish an optimal status.

Background | Outline | Argument | Evidence | Conclusions

vocabulary

Sources authors concepts

Miller, environ. science

Colinvaux, niche

Bateson, geometry

Krebs, 10 commandments

Margulis, eukaryots cells

Lovelock, gaia

Ecology

Biology

Ecosystems

Background | Outline | Argument | Evidence | Conclusions

Mayr | Thomas | Wilson | Hardin | Darwin | Margulis | Steingraber | Carr | Keller | Watson

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