>The question of measuring "success" (and its difficulty) is covered in
>Edward Wilson's wonderful recent book "Biodiversity" and also
>"Complexity" by Roger Lewin. The average tropical rainforest has about
>four times the biomass of ants as large vertebrate predators, and yet
>we tend to see the latter as the main rationale for preserving
>wilderness areas ("Save the Tiger"). We are relentlessly
>mammalo-anthropocentric in our view of the living universe, and also
>still imbued with Victorian notions of "Progress" (relentlessly
>demolished by SJ Gould in his book on the Burgess Shale fossils -
>forget the name). IMHOP the winners are undoubtedly bacteria: Wilson
>reviews evidence (from Norway, I think) that a single gram of soil
>taken at random has about 5000 different species. Another gram of soil
>also had 5000 species: but different!
Gould's book is "Wonderful Life"
I've read all these ("Microcosmos" is another good one along similar lines)
but all are extremely partisan manifestos for their various hobby horses.
Interesting and important as these theses are, they hardly constitute an
honest attempt to think through the question. Wilson, Lewin, and Gould
in particular are notable for their zealous partisanship.
I am happy to see this discussion stirred up by my original query
but I have to reiterate my objections to the measures of "success"
but forth in the above works.
-number of species may simply reflect tendency to speciate
-total biomass may reflect inert accumulations (bark, bones, shells)
-antiquity of a species may imply only a developmental dead end
(coelocanth, tuatara, limulus)
-comparisons of an entire order (eg ants) against a single species
(eg Home sapiens subsp. sapiens) are intrinsically skewed.
-comparisons of antiquity between an old and new extant species
(eg limulus vs Homo sapiens) are of limited value since
no one can say how long either will last.
My instinct here is that certain biological types (whether species, classes
or even phylla) are particulary "successful" in a number of related but
difficult to pin down ways. Some strike us as the perfect realization
of a particular "type" (eg sharks) but have neither resulted in a huge
number of individuals or species. Some (eg beetles) seem like a wonderful
base design upon which endless variations are possible. Some have a huge
number of individuals, some occupy pivotal positions within their ecosystems,
some impressively maximize some parameter (blue whales, cheetahs, bristlecone
pines, Hot springs bacteria, etc.). I would argue that people belong to a
small set of types (with ants, corals, etc) that are extremely successful
in the sense that the entire future of Life would look much different
in their absence. I offered as one possible surrogate variable for
success the total free energy captured by a given species. I am sure
that someone has tried to calculate this and was curious if anyone knew
the best guess estimate.
>For every complex problem there's a simple solution. And it's wrong!
Agreed. I am a little surprised at the number of people with simple
answers to this complex question. Thanks for your thoughts and look
forward to others input.
robin
