<<
It doesn't need diversity, it just needs those particular organisms.
Any organism that needed biodiversity in the desert wold be in a
bad way - deserts have relatively low biodiversity.
>>
But not microbiologically low in biodiversity. Anyway. . . Now _you_ also are
placing limits on the range of biodivertity and I think that is exactly what
your argument opponents are also saying--so you both agree.
Curt, you seem to be arguing a moot point--increasing biodiversity from simple
to complex lifeforms has already _caused_ the abundance of life on Earth by
adding more and more life in hostile environmental niches.
And evolution is self-perpetuating the biodiversity, whether the _rate_ of
biodiversity is increasing or not.
<<The scare tactic "save the wild environment or we're all gonna die!"
is bogus and, as such, will fail in the end. >>
It _is_ IMNSHO a scare tactic. There is no evidence that humans will have
desire to, are now, or ever will _be_able_ to decrease or increase (i.e.,
control) biodiversity to any statistically significant extent. When you pull
on it here, it stretches there. And I am _not_ talking just about life on
Earth!
(In a way, our own human bodies are biodiverse, each cell type doing it's own
function.)
There are however some 80,000+ parasitic/symbiotic triad interactions that
seem to need (if not "biodiversity") at least each other to complete their
life cycles. The ones I work with are plant-mold-insect triads. The plant
needs the mold to process nutrients and the insect carries the mold to the
soil where the seeds then germinate. Many of the triads are used to
colonize adverse environmental areas. It is a big mistake to do what
classical microbiologists do--"isolate" microogranisms from there biological
help-mates many can't not survive at all then.
For instance it is (so far) impossible to repair many kinds injured cells
without the correct pre-formed peptides from other species. It is possible to
synthesize the peptides if we knew which ones there were, but right now we
don't. It is biodiversity that helps this microbiological research, by
showing us how problems were already solved by nature. Biodiversity will help
humans live in a greater array environments because of this--already has, e,g,
cold weather survival technology, deep sea survival are both based on animal
and plant survival strategies.
_Listeria_monocytrogenes_ in a nutrient starved environment, can not repair
damage nor grow without specific deuteromycete (a group of mold species) by-
products.
If fleas would die--birds would go blind because the fleas clear fecal matter
from baby bird's eyes.
If the Eucalyptus trees die--the Koala dies because that is all their enzyme
systems can digest.--an old kid's school example.
If you kill off all bacteria in humans--the humans die because _Candida
albicans_ colonizes the humans and kills the humans. This is called
"competative inhibition."
If you kill off the nitrogen cycle microorganisms--the plants die and that
kills off the rest of the food chain, including humans. Same for the oxygen
cycle and the carbon cycle.
If you have only one species left--say humans--and a virus like AIDS invades .
. . the only salvation is in that specie's own genetic "biodiversity." In
our case that is not much protection since probably 99.9999999% (9 logs = in
the billions) of the human population is susceptable. I wish humans
themselves had more genetic "biodiversity."
Davin
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Davin C.Enigl, MS-MEAS Microbiologist
MEAS = Master of Environmental Arts and Sciences
http://members.aol.com/enigl
Microbiology Consultant--Biotechnology, Cosmetics, Foods, Nutritional
Supplements, and Pharmaceuticals
_Preservative-Free and Self-Preserving Cosmetics and Drugs_ copyright 1997,
Marcel-Dekker
HACCP, cGMP, laboratory validation, preservative design and testing, water
system design and validation.
February 17, 1998
10:38 am PACIFIC