The rodent who has developed an immunity may escape. A snake competing for the same food source who has not developed this special variation will be at a disadvantage. Let us consider a snake that has developed a poison on its tongue that can lash out and paralyze a rodent. The rodent who has not developed an immunity to the toxin will be stunned and devoured. Life favors the fittest to survive. This is the theory of natural selection.įavorable variations in a species will boost its position toward dominance in its ecosystem. Let us consider a tropical rainforest scenario where the mutual relations of the many life forms are infinitely complex and close-fitting, having developed over many years in a relatively closed system with little temperature variation or other external factors that might tend to pressure a species. Instead, the competition to survive takes place within a diversely populated environment under the forest canopy. Why do some species survive while others go extinct? In many situations, we are upsetting the natural checks and balances in place where superior survival traits would otherwise govern relationships between species, by causing the extinction of species through habitat destruction, pollution and slaughter for commerce or trophy. That is how the natural world works when populations are balanced. Populations are kept in check by this process of natural selection.īut humans, at the top of the chain, now dominate every aspect of the natural world and are changing the equation governing ecosystems by wholesale destroying ecosystems and severely compromising others.
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