January 18, 2006
WITH A CATASTROPHIC INTERVENTION THROWN IN PERIODICALLY TO SALT THE SYSTEM:
Who lives, who dies in the jungle (Richard Black, 1/17/06BBC News)
The woolly mammoth and the dodo have gone; the dinosaur kingdom lies withered in its fossil graveyard.The gorilla and the bonobo dwindle, along with countless fish and rainforest beetles as yet un-numbered.
Golden eagles and rhinos, meanwhile, gambol in their newly-found multitudes.
What is it, then, that decides who lives and who dies - which species teeter and fall after the dodo, and which, like the eagle, regain their numbers and soar again?
As the examples overwhelmingly demonstrate: for individual species it's just intelligent decision-making by humans.
MORE:
How we're accelerating evolution (Dolores Flaherty, Sep 22, 2002, Chicago Sun-Times)
While those folks in Kansas a few years ago successfully were getting evolution out of textbooks, some of their friends, maybe even family members, or they themselves, were on the forefront of evolutionary change--breeding bugs and weeds with resistance to their chemical sprays and even to gene manipulation.Posted by Orrin Judd at January 18, 2006 8:02 AMThat is sort of a down-to-earth overview of The Evolution Explosion, Stephen R. Palumbi's account of how humans are causing rapid evolutionary change. It's happening in germs, viruses, insects and plant life. And we'll be quite lucky if we manage to stay ahead of it.
I blame Bush, Ashcroft and the Patriot act.
Posted by: Jeff at January 18, 2006 10:40 AMIf you can live off garbage then you might survive.
If you're cute enough and don't mind procreating in captivity, then you might survive.
If you're big and need large plots of unspoiled rangeland stocked with prey, you're toast.
Robert:
That's quite wrong. As long as you taste good, run fast, etc. you can be big and require room. It's just a matter of human taste.
Posted by: oj at January 18, 2006 3:05 PM