RE: Survival of the Flattest

[Robert Crawley]

Title: RE: Survival of the Flattest

This is kind of cross topic, but is seems relevant. I brew honey wine, otherwise known as mead, and I use a yeast (Saccharomyces baynus) to produce the alcohol. This yeast is very territorial, and reproduces like wild fire. In doing so it consumes its food supply and eventually becomes unable to sustain itself, but not due to a lack of food. Rather, it dies of alcohol poisoning – its own waste.   Robert Crawley Elite Precision Fabricators, Inc. Programming (936) 449-6823   -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Thomas Green Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 10:51 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: Survival of the Flattest   I think JHB brought up some very important limitations with trying to model evolutionary patterns.  Major extinctions are thought to have some kind of catalyst to force the change over a short period, like a big 'roid.  This led scientists like Stephen J. Gould to create the "punctuated equilibrium" theory; when things are stable in the environment, natural selection tunes species for their habitat; but once in a while something revolutionary happens that completely reshuffles the deck regardless of fitness in the current environment.  So events like the Cambrian explosion, evolution of photosynthesis or multicelluar life, or asteroid impacts might be hard to include in a computer model.  But I think the "Survival of the Flattest" model is just to focus on how mutation rates may select against rapidly reproducing species, so from that specific goal, the simulation might be valid. For Europa, I'd imagine 3 main strategies: 1. The opportunist that lurks as spores embedded in the ice and flourishes quickly when a meltthrough event takes place, or some other localized bloom of nutrients occurs. 2. Ocean dwelling scavengers that drift, with very low metabolism, until they encounter the next meal 3. Hydrothermal vent communities??? Only the opportunist species in the ice-crust could be exposed to radiation levels that lead to higher mutation rates, but these are also the same species that would be selected for very high reproductive rates to take advantage of a short-duration event.  My assumption is that eventually they'd evolve a coping mechanism to deal with the higher radiation levels (like chromosome repair), but maybe that would be dependant on the frequency of meltthrough events. Cheers, Tom