The Richness of Being

I assumed for the longest time that we had a much firmer grasp on the number of living species on the planet. Apparently we barely know anything, which is making me think slightly differently both about the discovery and the loss of species. The discovery of a new variety of snub-nosed monkey or the rediscovery of an extinct giant tortoise feels as a bit less of a surprise now. I am glad it garners media attention, because taxonomists need all the attention they can get. At the same time the extinction of a particular type of creature doesn’t seem as devastating. Surely, the death of a species is the Theory of Evolution doing its job. The idea that every species needs to be preserved is strange. The fact that our children might not see a particular type of animal shouldn’t be much of a factor. I understand the concern when humans eradicate a certain habitat and a species nears extinction, but at the same time our own role as predators on this planet needs to be seriously considered. The idea that we as a species should expand where we live and increase our population without eradicating other species of animals seems to be a ridiculous idea. This was never the case for any other animal. There should be a serious discussion about what are the effects of our presence on the planet in terms of other species and what should be our concerns, because trying to keep habitats preserved and expand at the same time is impossible. The word “extinction” has such negative connotations attached to it, but it’s what’s allowed us to be here. Surely some species had to disappear for ours to flourish. Wide varieties of animals have gone extinct in the past and life still thrives on the planet and that’s the beauty of the diversity of life that’s out there waiting to be cataloged.

Link to article on new species

– Jokubas Uogintas

So many species…

THE RICHNESS OF BEING by Bill Bryson is a really valuable read, although personally I could not stand his style of writing which was pretty tiresome; overly wordy and not so quick to the point.

The knowledge in it was, however, both refreshing (in the case of Darwin and Linnaeus references) and revealing. I was absolutely shocked by the numbers of species Bryson provided – I mean, I always knew there were plenty, but the estimated number of 3-200 mln of species on earth is absolutely breathtaking. Even more breathtaking, but this time in a bad way, is the estimated 30 000 species that go extinct yearly! This number is so high primarily due to human activity.

Bryson mentions great many of notable species collectors such as Joseph Banks (Australia), Alexander von Humbolt (Amazonia), Darwin (of course), Richard Meinertzhagen (birds) and many more. He discusses the historic approaches to taxonomy, how they evolved and how we arrived at today’s classification – that was thanks to the work of a Swede Carl von Linne, commonly known as Linnaeus. The basis  for his classification were the physical attributes of a given organism.

The article spends a great deal of time discussing mosses in the context of taxonomy and the process of it. A fact that I found particularly curious was the phenomenon of the Hyophila Stanfordensis moss – a moss that has been discovered at Stanford University campus (hence the name), and found nowhere else in the world except for beside a path in Cornwall, England. Wow! How did that happen?! Nobody knows.

It is also good to know that mosses are no good indicators of the  North at all – instead, we should look for the lichens.

Overall, this article was captivating, although it really was a pain to read it, and the only thing that kept me going was the hunger for knowledge from it, because it gives you a really rich and well-balanced take on/review of taxonomy and the exploration of the world of species.

On that note, a person that I find really fascinating is Jacques Cousteau. He was a French naval officer and a passionate ecologist and a sea lover. He was the first person ever to produce underwater video records of sea life and it happened after the WW2 in the Mediterranean. Much of the sea life, big fish, and corals he had documented are now gone due to excessive fishing, tourism, other sea exploration activities and pollution. Nowadays less than 1% (!!!) of the Mediterranean is under protection, but environmental organizations with the help of his son and his videos are working on the restoration of the variety of Sea life. I know this from a documentary I watched on NatGeo WILD.

Jacques Couteau

Bill Bryson reading

Thursday’s assignment we read Bill Bryson’s chapter 23 the richness of being.

I’d have to say the reading began a bit slow, moss is fun, at least in texture, but the explanation of moss types and the people who passionately study them was intense.

I leaned that Botany was very popular in the 19^th century; I thought that was kind of funny. Of course it’s exciting to go on adventures and find new things, but comparing an obsession like twilight to botany would be a strange experience. I heart botany posters, and people lining up to see the latest fern, what a world.  I’m sure the 8^th century was much more classy with its approach.

The flower seller Fraser fir was impressive, finding new flowers and selling them to plant crazed buyers’ that sounded like a good life. I couldn’t help but wondering, during this time with botanists coming back and forth with plants was there an increase in new disease?

I enjoyed the way Linnaeus dealt with people: anyone who voiced their dislike of his ego had weeds Linnaeus found named after them. Why weren’t most of the plant types named after people? There are a lot of furniture types and inventions named after people, why were the plants and animals so specifically categorized?

As the chapter explained Ninnaeus’s system of classification made scientific classifications easier and sorter, I remember from high school zoology we had to learn the kingdom and Phylum, class etcetera for certain animals, I’m glad they were not any longer than they had to be.

This whole thing about categorizing plants and animals reminds me of something we talked about in phycology. Humans like to organize everything in order to make sense of it. We make problems for ourselves by needing to classify everything and give every little variation a name other wise our lives would become very boring. Not that I dislike the idea of finding things and having a common name to call a new discovery but this whole process is very tedious.  It becomes especially tedious when no one can agree on which way to group types of grass or crustaceans. I’d just keep the plants named anus and ballocks like they were originally.

The Richness Of Being

According to the Economist, we have discovered only 3% of the earth’s flora and fauna.  It is hard t believe as research has been going on for centuries, and yet maybe in few thousands years we will have explored and classified only all of the insects species.  As travelling became much more accessible and less time-consuming, we forgot actually how big the world is.  Everywhere, from the soil to the surface of our skin, is covered by thousands and thousands of microorganisms that are essential to the development of life on Earth. Examining each of them, we can find unique qualities that will help us fight against major issues such as cancer.  Even though they are invisible to the naked human eye they may have a huge impact on our existence.

Nowadays, people are chasing easy ways of earning quick fame and a quite stable, big income.  Making a career in research doesn’t usually meet those requirements.  It is usually tedious and extremely demanding.  Studying one kind of a plant till the end of somebody’s life and not coming up with a concrete answer to a questions about is not failure, however it is seen so by the general public.  Maybe this scientist has created the base of another to solve an issue?

Another problem scientist are facing is that the enormous amount of exploration to be done and not enough resources but as well the endless task of untangling and reclassifying species that have been recognized in the precious centuries. Without technology, communication and travelling were much more challenging that it is now. Thus, consulting others and checking upon if the specimen we supposedly identified wasn’t already acknowledged for example in a different country was   almost impossible.

I found this article absolutely fascinating, and I hope that our pace of identifying and classifying new specimen will only increase and that it will help us improve living conditions.