Have you heard about the bees? They are dying. Life forms like bees that are a crucial and obvious part of our ecosystem are key factors that we use to predict and understand the natural world. And when they start dying, we know something bad is happening. Like the fabled butterfly monsoon connection, this sort of die off is usually the precursor to greater widespread environmental degradation and danger.
I am not suggesting that you go out and buy a bunch of honey, but if you want my suggestion, go out and start a beehive! Or simply create some habitat for bees to encourage their safe growth and a long term supply of life on earth. If you need more convincing here's a great link to an article about bee ecology and how they play a role in our agricultural economy way outside of the honey in the pot.
What's more, this article above suggests something even more interesting. As species decline in number, it is the smaller populations that decrease first. This suggests that smaller niche organisms are the first to go, and that the broader and more robust organisms remain. This has been the case for eternity and is nothing to laugh at or feel remorse over. It is a rule of nature. What it implies though does give me a bit of pause. Postulate with me what could happen if the niche organisms disappear or diminish greatly? It is the loss of the extraordinarily adapted symbiotics, the bizarre plants that lure outlandish insects, the rare plant that requires feeding by even rarer ants. Do you see where this takes us? To a world of switch grass and flies. To a land of few, not plenty. Speciation is one of the gifts of our extraordinary world, and one we must not take for grated.
2 comments:
Fun fact of the day: western honeybees are not native to North America, yet we rely on them for most of our pollination.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beekeeping
Indeed bees aren't even that great for pollination, but honey is great to eat. And biodiversity is fun to say and have.
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