Did Radiation Affect Evolution?

[Peez]

By niche I mean

Birds beaks adapted to get nectar from one particular plant
giraffes

Is there more marine bio mass today then Cambrian?

There is no obvious reason to suspect that there is, but I suppose that it is possible.

Peez

 

[bilby]

By niche I mean

Birds beaks adapted to get nectar from one particular plant
giraffes

Is there more marine bio mass today then Cambrian?

There is no obvious reason to suspect that there is, but I suppose that it is possible.

Peez

I would guess (but it is only a guess) that there might be more marine biomass today, due to the higher rate of nutrient runoff from land, now that the land has been colonized by life. However climate variations and/or the positions of the major landmasses may have a larger effect, and if so, that would render my guess very woolly indeed.

 

[steve_bank]

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/science/earth/15oceans.html

Ocean dead zones due to nitrogen from fertilizer runoff. There is one off the mouth of the Mississippi. No marine life.

 

[skepticalbip]

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/science/earth/15oceans.html

Ocean dead zones due to nitrogen from fertilizer runoff. There is one off the mouth of the Mississippi. No marine life.

But does that indicate a decrease in biomass or a kill off of large species. I thought that those dead zones were caused by massive increase in alga feasting on the nutrients, that the massive increase in algal biomass depleted the oxygen so killing the fish.

 

[steve_bank]

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/science/earth/15oceans.html

Ocean dead zones due to nitrogen from fertilizer runoff. There is one off the mouth of the Mississippi. No marine life.

But does that indicate a decrease in biomass or a kill off of large species. I thought that those dead zones were caused by massive increase in alga feasting on the nutrients, that the massive increase in algal biomass depleted the oxygen so killing the fish.

I started a thread on ocean heath. Thinking that human activity is good for marine life is a bit strange.

 

[bilby]

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/science/earth/15oceans.html

Ocean dead zones due to nitrogen from fertilizer runoff. There is one off the mouth of the Mississippi. No marine life.

But does that indicate a decrease in biomass or a kill off of large species. I thought that those dead zones were caused by massive increase in alga feasting on the nutrients, that the massive increase in algal biomass depleted the oxygen so killing the fish.

Yes, that's the usual mechanism for these things to occur. And that's due to VAST amounts of soluble nitrates, which are a characteristic of industrial scale fertilizer production; I am thinking more of the nutrient run off in the pre-industrial (and even pre-agricultural) era, due to plants and animals colonizing the land. Such run off would presumably be more nutrient rich than the run off from continents devoid of life, while still being far less nutrient rich than the run off from modern mega-farms (which only occupy a minuscule fraction of the timeline anyway, when we are discussing the period from the pre-Cambrian era up to the present.

Regardless of 'dead zones' around river estuaries (which are far from 'dead' unless you are only interested in large multicellular animals), the net effect of adding nutrients to the oceans should be an increase in total oceanic biomass, ceteris paribus.

 

[fromderinside]

Not as simple as that. Limited productivity of life depends on availability of O₂ and CO₂ respectively for aerobic and anaerobic life. Ocean carrying capacity for those depend on existing life and mechanical means for acquiring more of those molecules and not just availability of nutrients. Also there's the problems of acidification and mineralization of water.

 

[bilby]

Not as simple as that. Limited productivity of life depends on availability of O₂ and CO₂ respectively for aerobic and anaerobic life. Ocean carrying capacity for those depend on existing life and mechanical means for acquiring more of those molecules and not just availability of nutrients. Also there's the problems of acidification and mineralization of water.

Yeah, but CO₂ isn't in short supply; The ocean has a large and fairly rapidly mixed surface (as any surfer can attest).

And O₂ is VASTLY more common.

The limiting factor on most marine life today is nutrients such as Iron, Nitrate, and Phosphate.

That's reversed in estuarine 'dead zones', but those are a minuscule fraction of the ocean volume, and have existed for minuscule amounts of time. Indeed the existence of such zones is a clear demonstration that the limiting factor is those nutrients; Adding them causes algal blooms to finally start hitting the oxygen availability limits.

pH is important in the short term, but not so much for long run total ocean biomass over geological ages.

Centuries are irrelevant short term nonsense in this context.

 

[Peez]

By niche I mean

Birds beaks adapted to get nectar from one particular plant
giraffes

Is there more marine bio mass today then Cambrian?

There is no obvious reason to suspect that there is, but I suppose that it is possible.

Peez

I would guess (but it is only a guess) that there might be more marine biomass today, due to the higher rate of nutrient runoff from land, now that the land has been colonized by life. However climate variations and/or the positions of the major landmasses may have a larger effect, and if so, that would render my guess very woolly indeed.

It is only a guess, but you make a good point.

Peez

 

[Peez]

steve_bank
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/s.../15oceans.html
Ocean dead zones due to nitrogen from fertilizer runoff. There is one off the mouth of the Mississippi. No marine life.

So-called "dead zones" are not "dead", there is plenty of marine life. In fact it is possible that total biomass is not any lower than in other areas. From the linked article:

Low oxygen levels wipe out fish and crustaceans from bottom waters...

Nitrogen from agricultural runoff and sewage stimulates the growth of photosynthetic plankton on the surface of coastal waters. As the organisms decay and sink to the bottom, they are decomposed by microbes that consume large amounts of dissolved oxygen. Most animals that live at the bottom of the coastal ocean cannot survive as oxygen levels drop.

Something similar may happen in fresh-water systems, see eutrophication.

Peez

 

[Peez]

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/science/earth/15oceans.html

Ocean dead zones due to nitrogen from fertilizer runoff. There is one off the mouth of the Mississippi. No marine life.

But does that indicate a decrease in biomass or a kill off of large species. I thought that those dead zones were caused by massive increase in alga feasting on the nutrients, that the massive increase in algal biomass depleted the oxygen so killing the fish.

I started a thread on ocean heath. Thinking that human activity is good for marine life is a bit strange.

What is "good" for marine life depends on one's point of view. The processes that lead to "dead zones" are good for some marine life (the stuff that grows and uses up the oxygen) but bad for others (the fish that need that oxygen).

Peez

 

[steve_bank]

I started a thread on ocean heath. Thinking that human activity is good for marine life is a bit strange.

What is "good" for marine life depends on one's point of view. The processes that lead to "dead zones" are good for some marine life (the stuff that grows and uses up the oxygen) but bad for others (the fish that need that oxygen).

Peez

That, to be blunt. is the among best horse shit I have ever heard. You can not be serious.

 

[Peez]

I started a thread on ocean heath. Thinking that human activity is good for marine life is a bit strange.

What is "good" for marine life depends on one's point of view. The processes that lead to "dead zones" are good for some marine life (the stuff that grows and uses up the oxygen) but bad for others (the fish that need that oxygen).

Peez

That, to be blunt. is the among best horse shit I have ever heard. You can not be serious.

Well, if we are being blunt, I am a university biology professor and you don't know a damn thing about what you are spouting off.

Peez

 

[phands]

I started a thread on ocean heath. Thinking that human activity is good for marine life is a bit strange.

What is "good" for marine life depends on one's point of view. The processes that lead to "dead zones" are good for some marine life (the stuff that grows and uses up the oxygen) but bad for others (the fish that need that oxygen).

Peez

That, to be blunt. is the among best horse shit I have ever heard. You can not be serious.

He can be completely serious because he's completely right. Human activity has directly benefited the various algal species that cause red tides. Ditto jellyfish. They both thrive on the conditions we created, thus it is good for them.

You are being species-ist

 

[Peez]

That, to be blunt. is the among best horse shit I have ever heard. You can not be serious.

He can be completely serious because he's completely right. Human activity has directly benefited the various algal species that cause red tides. Ditto jellyfish. They both thrive on the conditions we created, thus it is good for them.

You are being species-ist

Taxonomic bias is an ugly thing.

Peez

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I started a thread on ocean heath. Thinking that human activity is good for marine life is a bit strange.

What is "good" for marine life depends on one's point of view. The processes that lead to "dead zones" are good for some marine life (the stuff that grows and uses up the oxygen) but bad for others (the fish that need that oxygen).

Peez

That, to be blunt. is the among best horse shit I have ever heard. You can not be serious.

The thing is it's bad for the things we care about. He is right, though. The oxygen depletion is because something used it, it didn't just vanish.

 

[steve_bank]

That, to be blunt. is the among best horse shit I have ever heard. You can not be serious.

The thing is it's bad for the things we care about. He is right, though. The oxygen depletion is because something used it, it didn't just vanish.

Care about? I suppose you might say we care about O2 and the carbon cycle..

More bullshit. The idea that there is any meaningful positive aspect to ocean pollution is right up there with global warming deniers. Trump might say northern ice melts are good, it opens up real estate development.

I remember a cartoon from the 70s. A photograph of a Russian speaking at the UN had a text bubble saying 'Russian scientists have proved radiation is good for you'.

There is a new issue called micro plastics. Very small shreds of plastic in the ocean getting into the food chain. Some small as an individual cells. Small enough to get into blood streams.

Loren, do you understand the global O2 cycle that maintains the O2 levels? What happens if plankton goes away?

 

[Peez]

That, to be blunt. is the among best horse shit I have ever heard. You can not be serious.

The thing is it's bad for the things we care about. He is right, though. The oxygen depletion is because something used it, it didn't just vanish.

Care about? I suppose you might say we care about O2 and the carbon cycle..

More bullshit. The idea that there is any meaningful positive aspect to ocean pollution is right up there with global warming deniers. Trump might say northern ice melts are good, it opens up real estate development.

I remember a cartoon from the 70s. A photograph of a Russian speaking at the UN had a text bubble saying 'Russian scientists have proved radiation is good for you'.

There is a new issue called micro plastics. Very small shreds of plastic in the ocean getting into the food chain. Some small as an individual cells. Small enough to get into blood streams.

Loren, do you understand the global O2 cycle that maintains the O2 levels? What happens if plankton goes away?

I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that I have forgotten more about "the global O2 cycle" than you have ever known. You are making no sense here. Nobody in this thread has suggested that we should not be concerned about 'dead zones' in the ocean. It would make you look like less of an ass if you would learn about a topic before throwing around words like "bullshit".

Peez

 

[untermensche]

There is evolution. Change that takes place without any mind or planning involved. There are no goals.

There is also human caused change. Change that takes place due to planning and foresight and greed and pride and desire.

The changes that occur under both systems are not equivalent.

Change due to foresight and planning is not evolution.

Evolution is change to organisms and the environment without the interference of an external intelligence.

The human mind is more powerful than the random slow process of evolution.

 

[phands]

Evolution is change to organisms and the environment without the interference of an external intelligence.

Not Even Wrong. Look how us external intelligences have influenced canine evolution. To a lesser extent, Feline. Wheat, corn....pretty much every species of anything we find useful, we have deliberately selected for certain characteristics, and that is still evolution.