Quotes About Ecosystem

the total number of dams that alter the Mississippi River watershed is in excess of 50,000.

In Oregon, a far larger honey mushroom (Armillaria ostoyae) mycelial mat found on a mountaintop covers more than 2,400 acres and is possibly more than 2,200 years old

I wonder what would happen if there were a United Organization of Organisms (UOO, pronounced "uh-oh"), where each species gets one vote. Would we be voted off the planet? The answer is pretty clear.

There are more species of fungi, bacteria, and protozoa in a single scoop of soil than there are species of plants and vertebrate animals in all of North America. And of these, fungi are the grand recyclers of our planet, the mycomagicians disassembling large organic molecules into simpler forms, which in turn nourish other members of the ecological community. Fungi are the interface organisms between life and death.

Intact forest ecosystems, by comparison, provide more ecological services than just board feet of lumber. They clean the water, provide shade, and give communities plants, insects, and animals. Protecting our forests is essential not only for our survival now, but also for the survival of generations to come.

We face the possibility of being rejected by the biosphere as a virulent organism. But

We have already exterminated 90% of the fish. The fish population is 90% smaller than it was before we began to wage war on the oceans. (p. 209)

It's wonderful to me that bees have this simple, age-old thing going on.

it is entirely illogical to consider biology in dichotomous terms of genes and environment—all of biology is based on the continuous interaction of both.

All living things affect their environment by making and transforming chemicals, and

if you focus on the large fossils, you miss most of the life that is present

mammals and birds can live longer, if they don't get eaten

In the November 2006 issue of Science, a report by an international team of scientists studying a vast amount of data gathered between 1950 and 2003 declared that if current trends of fishing and pollution continue, every fishery in the world's oceans will collapse by 2048...The oceans as an ecosystem would completely collapse.

Some tiny micro-organism fed on the bat guano on the floor of the cave; a maggot ate the micro-organism; a beetle ate the maggot; a spider ate the beetle; then a bat ate the spider. It was a perfect food chain. The bat was smart, all it had to do was shit and wait.

Un microorganismo minúsculo se alimentaba del excremento de los murciélagos del suelo de la cueva; un gusano se comía el microorganismo; un escarabajo se comía el gusano; una araña se comía el escarabajo; finalmente, un murciélago se comía la araña. Era una cadena alimenticia perfecta.

And God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.”

the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep.

The boar from the forest ravages it, and the creatures of the field feed upon it.

The high mountains are for the wild goats, the cliffs a refuge for the rock badgers.

Here is the sea, vast and wide, teeming with creatures beyond number, living things both great and small.

wild animals and all cattle, crawling creatures and flying birds,

The waters made it grow; the deep springs made it tall, directing their streams all around its base and sending their channels to all the trees of the field.