Joe,
It will adapt: specialists will become extinct as habitats are
simplified by humans and niches are eliminated. Generalists will do
well and as the surface of Earth becomes increasingly more human
dominated we will reach a point where large negative feedback loops
will collapse positive feedback will amplify our actions and the
environment will become so simplified that the complex, adaptive way
of Nature will give way to Homeorrhetic Engineering at a planetary
level. At that point the entire surface of Earth will become
artificial ("0" degree of naturalness because all control and
regulation will be in the hands of one conscious species.and natural
selection will have ended.
I am glad I won't be here when that happens.
Gary
On Oct 25, 2009, at 12:45 PM, Joseph Zorzin wrote:
> Lee, if all humans vanished, I suppose it could easily recover
> fairly quickly (in geologic time) but since we aren't disappearing
> and our numbers and our demands on the Earth's resources are
> increasing - how can the Earth adapt to us?
> Joe
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Lee Frelich
> To: [email protected]
> Sent: Sunday, October 25, 2009 12:42 PM
> Subject: [ENTS] Re: Autopoietic Forests and Forest Patch Management
>
>
> Joe:
>
> Yes, but the time scale will be on the order of several million years.
> That might seem long to us, but it is very short compared to the
> length
> of time life has been present on the earth.
>
> Lee
>
> Joseph Zorzin wrote:
> > the fundamental question - can the Earth ever recover from the comet
> > like impact of humans and be as great as it once was?
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > *From:* Lee Frelich <mailto:[email protected]>
> > *To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]
> >
> > *Sent:* Sunday, October 25, 2009 11:49 AM
> > *Subject:* [ENTS] Re: Autopoietic Forests and Forest Patch
> Management
> >
> >
> > Gary, Ed:
> >
> > As Ed points the autopoietic concept and preservation concept
> have
> > problems in terms of defining what indirect effects of people
> are
> > allowed for a system to still be considered autopoietic. The
> indirect
> > effects that are allowed or not allowed then lead to all sorts
> of
> > logic
> > problems with temporal and spatial scale as it relates to
> > preservation.
> >
> > For example, if autopoiesis includes watching how collective DNA
> > of the
> > species within the preserved area responds to loss of species
> due to
> > introduced diseases and pests, then small areas could be
> autopoietic,
> > but if it does not include those indirect effects, then no
> area is
> > big
> > enough to be autopoietic (or to be preserved), since no size
> > ensures the
> > absence of invasive tree diseases and pests.
> >
> > The temporal scale problem is equally large. Given many
> thousands or
> > millions of years, all systems will respond and adapt to non
> native
> > species, climate change and loss of the species that initially
> were
> > native. The introduction of invasive species, tree pests and
> > diseases,
> > and global warming become a small blip in time, and all systems
> > would be
> > autopoietic. If defined on a time scale of a few centuries,
> > however, all
> > systems would lose autopoeisis, regardless of size, given the
> > onslaught
> > of invasive species and global warming.
> >
> > Its always the temporal and spatial scale issues that are so
> > difficult
> > with any new concept in ecology. It took me 2 years to work
> through
> > those issues for the neighborhood effect hypothesis of forest
> > dynamics
> > before I was happy enough with the concept to publish it.
> >
> > If people are interested in preserving the last natural
> systems as
> > they
> > are right now, then there is no spatial or temporal scale at
> which
> > autopoesis or preservation will
> > work without a lot of management outside of the 'preserved'
> areas to
> > keep out all invasive species and stop global warming.
> >
> > Lee
> >
> >
> > >
>
>
> >
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