Quotes About Ecosystem

Preventing Homo sapiens from destroying itself à la Gause would require a still greater transformation, to Margulis's way of thinking, because we would be pushing against Nature itself. Success would be unprecedented, biologically speaking. It would be a reverse Copernican Revolution, showing that humankind is exempt from natural processes that govern all other species. But might we be able to do exactly that? Might Margulis have got this one wrong? Might we indeed be special?

For obvious reasons its farmers did not relish the prospect of buffalo herds trampling through their fields. Nor did they want deer, moose, or passenger pigeons eating the maize. They hunted them until they were scarce around their homes. At the same time, they tried to encourage these species to grow in number farther away, where they would be useful. "The net result was to keep that kind of animal at arm's length

After Columbus everything changed. The Indian population collapsed. Clams and mussels exploded in number; they also grew larger. Game overran the land. Sir Francis Drake sailed into San Francisco's harbor in 1579 and saw a land of plenty.

These old forests, called fallows, have traditionally been classified as high forest (pristine forest on well-drained ground) by Western researchers," Balée wrote in 2003. But they "would not exist" without "human agricultural activities.

But a plant on the edge of a deserts is said to struggle for life against the drought, though more properly it should be said to be dependent upon the moisture.

Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult - at least I have found it so - than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind...We behold the face of nature bright with gladness...We do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects and seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life.

Let it also be borne in mind how infinitely complex and close-fitting are the mutual relations of all organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life; and consequently what infinitely varied diversities of structure might be of use to each being under changing conditions of life.

the structure of every organic being is related, in the most essential yet often hidden manner, to that of all the other organic beings ...

In the latter country alone, very many (probably several hundred) square miles are covered by one mass of these prickly plants, and are impenetrable by man or beast. Over the undulating plains, where these great beds occur, nothing else can now live. Before their introduction, however, the surface must have supported, as in other parts, a rank herbage. I doubt whether any case is on record of an invasion on so grand a scale of one plant over the aborigines.

El muérdago depende del manzano y de otros pocos árboles, pero solamente en sentido muy artificial puede decirse que lucha con estos árboles, porque si en el mismo árbol crecen muchos de estos parásitos, el árbol languidece y muere. Pero de algunos muérdagos que producen semillas y que crecen juntamente en la misma rama puede decirse con más razón

Todo ser que durante el tiempo natural de su vida produce varios huevos o semillas, necesita sufrir destrucción durante algún período de su vida y durante alguna estación o en alguno que otro año, porque de otro modo, por el principio del aumento geométrico llegaría pronto su número a ser tan desordenadamente grande, que no habría país capaz de soportarlo.

What natural selection cannot do, is to modify the structure of one species, without giving it any advantage, for the good of another species; and though statements to this effect may be found in works of natural history, I cannot find one case which will bear investigation.

It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us.

pero la selección natural no puede modificar la estructura de una especie, sin darle ninguna ventaja, para provecho de otra especie;

Hence it is quite credible that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers in a district might determine, through the intervention first of mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district!

Though nature grants vast periods of time for the work of natural selection, she does not grant an indefinite period; for as all organic beings are striving, it may be said, to seize on each place in the economy of nature, if any one species does not become modified and improved in a corresponding degree with its competitors, it will soon be exterminated.

The natural history of this archipelago is very remarkable; it seems to be a little world within itself.

The number of living creatures of all orders whose existence intimately depends on kelp is wonderful. A great volume might be written describing the inhabitants of one of these beds of seaweed…. I can only compare these great aquatic forests…with terrestrial ones in the intertropical regions. Yet, if in any other country a forest was destroyed, I do not believe so many species of animals would perish as would here, from the destruction of kelp

Our march toward self-annihilation has already obliterated ninety percent of the large fish in the oceans and wiped out half of the mature tropical forests, the lungs of the planet.25 At this rate, by 2030, only ten percent of the Earth's tropical forests will remain.

The whole ecosystem of celebrity has broken down for writers. If you go back to the '50s, '60s, and '70s, writers were on TV a lot, and they were allowed to misbehave a lot.

With a strong focus on driver-partners and the community at large, we aim to create a high-quality and affordable travel experience for citizens and look forward to contributing to a healthy mobility ecosystem in Australia.

mayaroo's great

each Swift consumes some six thousand insects per day.

Mosquitoes remind us that we are not as high up on the food chain as we think.