Myth of Balance in Nature: Adam Curtis: Arthur Tansley: It all started with a dream. One night in the 1920s botanist Arthur Tansley had an unsettling nightmare that involved him shooting his wife. So he did the natural thing and started reading the works of Sigmund Freud, and even went to be analysed by Freud himself. Then Tansley came up with an extraordinary theory. He took Freud's idea that the human brain is like an electrical machine – a network around which energy flowed – and argued that the same thing was true in nature. That underneath the bewildering complexity of the natural world were interconnected systems around which energy also flowed. He coined a name for them. He called them ecosystems. But Tansley went further. He said that the world was composed at every level of systems, and what's more, all these systems had a natural desire to stabilise themselves. He grandly called it “the great universal law of equilibrium”. Everything, he wrote, from the human mind to nature to even human societies – all are tending towards a natural state of equilibrium. Tansley admitted he had no real evidence for this. And what he was really doing was taking an engineering concept of systems and networks and projecting it on to the natural world, turning nature into a machine. But the idea, and the term “ecosystem”, stuck.
Adam Curtis, in the Observer, may 2011
Symbiogenesis: the merging of two organisms resulting in new features (much faster than classic genetic mutation)
Functional Trait Biodiversity: beyond knowing simply what is present, to form a picture of the impact of different species to ecosystem health / but may be misused as economic arguments in conservation
Phylogenetic diversity: level of species that have few or no close relatives and that are very different from other species, which may mean that they can contribute in very different ways to an ecosystem
Biocapacity: carrying capacity of an ecosystem
Genomics
Genotype: a genotype typically implies a measurement of how an individual differs or is specialized within a group
rapid adaptation: standing genetic variation for traits is underestimated
Trophic Cascade: Impact of predator cascades down through entire ecosystem
Global Tipping Points & Safe Operating Space for Humanity
Eutrophication: Nutrient Loading
Refugia: Sky Island ecology
Succession: Early Succesional (pioneer), Late Succesional (climax veg) Problematic because soils, climate are not constant. Longliving species may reflect past climate rather than present. Spread from refugia may not be complete yet. Recently evolved species may not have reached the limit of potential range. Birch is late successional in some areas, but early in others.
Extinction
Biodiversity Loss:
Species Extinction: indicating biodiversity loss by extinct species hides the enormous decline in individuals or biomass
Mass Extinction: examining the drop in the total number of animals, capturing also the plight of the world’s most common creatures
Age of Loneliness: Edward O. Wilson proffered an alternate name for this new epoch - the Eremozoic, meaning “the age of loneliness.”
Genetic Erosion: not enough individuals to meet and breed