Infnite forme bellissime - Carnevale della biodiversita' 1 di 6
MC Escher "Depth" 1955
"The beauty and 'eye of the beholder " M. Hungerford
This first post of the carnival of biodiversity 'as the title has an excerpt from the final sentence of the book "Origin of Species" by Darwin. Literally the complete sentence reads: "There is grandeur in this view of life, with ITS Several Powers, originally HAVING Been breatherd by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has been circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."
In italiano la potremmo tradurre come: "C'è qualcosa di grandioso in questa idea della vita, con le sue infinite potenzialità, originariamente infuse dal Creatore in pochissime o in una sola forma; e, mentre questo pianeta ha continuato a roteare seguendo le immutabili leggi di gravità, da un inizio così semplice infinite forme, bellissime e meravigliose, si sono evolute e tuttora si evolvono".
Dopo questo incipit veramente
poco originale come posso go on? I should explain why 'the forms can not be infinite or dissertation on the "Creator" added only in the second edition of the book to save himself from the clerical Terga?
Absolutely not, otherwise immediately close this article and would go to open a lot more 'educational site about blue-footed frog of Borneo.
So, my dear 20 readers (two counters confirm this), I'll 'an effort not to disappoint.
Let's start with an issue that apparently and 'connected' with head and let's get to an interesting destination. Quest'ottobre unfortunately 'failed mathematician Mandelbrot.
is he, that of fractals, as even I know that they are those functions whose graphical representation and 'unsolvable at all scales. In practice zooming in or out a fractal image will continue to find the same pattern repeated endlessly on different scales.
fractal image that are added to other Turrilites Turrilites construct an infinite identical in all 3 dimensions
objectively Fractals are fascinating for the general public and produced color images that would envy a hippie LSD and probably brought some attacks of epilepsy in the versions with animated color strobe.
But images are also useful because 'in a sense, offer a food for thought about the central theme of this carnival: biodiversity '.
No, I have not drunk the whole brain, and 'that to fully understand what biodiversity' we must make use of the techniques of thought that may be unfamiliar to many.
the best approach 'to the classic concept of biodiversity' and 'to count the taxa, describing new species and make a big catalog. Rightly, if we have no idea how many and which taxa and there are 'difficult to conclude any meaningful study. Unfortunately
soon and you 'and realized that the company' of titanic proportions, there are many more 'bodies of those who We can categorize and recent research has even expanded what was considered the limit of number of species. Especially in groups such as insects, mites, fungi and microbial life in general you can 'say I know only a fraction of organisms present. Anyone wishing to nominate a species or two (maybe with some funny name
) can 'always go to any major museum and examine the collections: thousands of species waiting to be described in a warehouse collecting dust.
The number of species, therefore, while not infinite, and 'still a fairly large number of results to all practical effects. Given sufficient effort and a long enough period of time we should be able to complete this immense work. Or not?
Considering that 99.9% of life forms that lived on this planet is' now extinct and that the assessment of biodiversity 'can not and regardless of the time factor' obvious that this number is' even more 'big.
How big? If we eliminate the microbes Some estimates indicate the current value of around 5 million species while others go to 10 million. Do the proportions. And of course
species are constantly evolving, so they come (virtually every day) continuously for new ..
As with fractals, in this case we can change the level of analysis (larger or smaller), but we always find a level of complexity 'comparable. Molto alto.
Mesalia varia e le sue variazioni sul tema
Ed abbiamo appena scalfito quello che e' il concetto di biodiversita', stiamo parlando di un mero calcolo del numero e delle sue fluttuazioni nel tempo, della descrizione di specie.
Se andiamo a guardare bene il concetto si e' evoluto negli anni fino ad includere anche la diversita' di ecosistemi e le diversita' molecolari/genetiche (plasticita' genotipica e, di riflesso, fenotipica), due nuovi livelli di complessita'.
Perche' in effetti la biodiversita' e' legata ai sistemi in cui e' inserita ed alla variabilita' genetica. So you could safely say that biodiversity 'is also linked to the evolution of animal forms and the environment. Enough to make you a headache?
If not just add another important point: the interconnections in biodiversity '. They are one of the additional levels of approach that can be taken into consideration and are one of the most 'useful for someone like me, and' interested in the matter from an ecological point of view.
All these forms and their evolution are fortunately finite number of (albeit very large) because 'should be subject to some basic principles. Real constraints that starting from certain initial conditions and taking into account environment, allow the evolution and survival of a number of forms determinato.Le regulation of gene expression, however, 'have a high variability' and there is' ample scope for creating new forms and functions.
The fish in this regard are a gold mine among vertebrates because 'in general have a high plasticity' that allows him to take all (or almost) the possible forms for that environment and that moment.
A small sample of a tropical fauna dulciaquicola
Now that we know (in a nutshell) what is the biodiversity ', how it develops and evolves as we can say that understand it fully we need a method of analysis to more 'levels, taking into account the different components, their relationships and how it all turns over time.
A multidisciplinary approach, therefore, as more 'stressed repeatedly in this blog, and' the only one who can 'give a complete picture. Comprehensive framework and 'need to understand (and perhaps one day be resolved) the current problems such as loss of biodiversity'. But this is' another story ..
I would rather close this article with some thoughts on the second part of the title, that "beautiful" that could turn up their noses at most 'of a person.
You have to be patient for naturalists who are suffering from a health condition which leads them to see forms and functions of animals and the general public are simply frightening or horrible.
Probably a marine biologist would find time to admire the perfection of the architecture of the jaws of sharks, the coordination of muscular movements during the bite, the nictitating membrane that slides to cover the eye from the fragments of flesh and bone, and while ' himself the object of the attentions of a mechanism so 'wonderful.
ammonoidi One of a lower logical sense, and yet 'been able to live and thrive for millions of years ..
You can not 'even tell you that we only admire the elegance functional bodies, because 'bodies also appear to lack any elegance in the function have proved to be successful ..
would therefore be more 'accurate to say that we consider "good" or even "beautiful" all forms of animals, or less elegantly, they complete the work for which it was designed ..
This is also patently bad shape as the smile of this fish lizard ..
... are considered "beautiful." They carry out their work well, albeit in a clumsy, for several millennia.
The beauty then, and 'definitely in the eye of the beholder.
A Galápagos batfish ( Ogcocephalus darwini)
Probably no one has warned the fish of the Galapagos of this concept would not otherwise have the opportunity to raddled ..
To see the other post of the carnival of biodiversity 'you can go directly to the blog participants (listed in this post
) or the host of the blog two months: The Watchmaker
Myopic .
