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[C]onservation biologists often use species' evolutionary history – their phylogeny – to identify groups of species to save."
This idea is based on the assumption that preserving phylogenetic diversity among species preserves more functional diversity than selecting species to preserve by chance. Functional diversity is important, Pearse says, because it drives ecosystem health and productivity.
"Yet measuring the effectiveness of functional diversity is difficult," he says. "So using phylogenetic diversity as a surrogate for functional diversity has made conservation biology much easier and more effective."
Building an ark to help the Earth weather ecosystem collapse has become a recurrent element of science fiction. How best would one go about it in practice?
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:41AM
We would put the American burying beetle, the greater sage grouse and the lesser prairie chicken in the ark. Keep them VERY SAFE in the ark. So we have ZERO PROBLEMS with them at our military bases. And in our oil fields. America First!!!!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:49AM (9 children)
It should float...because of global sea rise. And it should be very large. About 140m long by 23m wide and 14m high.
It should be made out of wood, one of the oldest and best boat building materials... Preferably cypress wood. And it should be covered inside and out with tar to make it waterproof. It should have decks so that all the lifeforms can be cryogenically and genetically preserved and organized in their own rooms. The organisms will require much oxygen. A half meter gap around the top should do. And don't forget the roof or an entrance door on the side.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:28AM (1 child)
I like the way you think A/C, do you think two of each animal will be enough?
It sounds like enough to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @04:33AM
I'd think two would be sufficient for some animals, but for the rest, I'd bring about 7 breeding pair.
Good - steak
Bad - bacon
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:36AM (5 children)
Cryogenically preserved, there's an awesome plan. Let's build something dependent on about a billion pieces of interdependent infrastructure, and then hope that it works for 100,000 years into the future. Power outage, backup generator failed too? Too bad, so sad. Dead is dead, it only takes one thaw to completely ruin the frozen hamburger or ice cream, whaddaya think that's gonna do for brainz?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:33PM (4 children)
Not much, since the brains were already completely destroyed by the freezing process. You can mostly freeze seeds, with their incredibly low water content, and animal gametes, zygotes, and even young enough embryos so long as they're small enough - by the time their big enough to see though, good luck freezing them fast enough to avoid cell-destroying water crystallization. Maybe someday.
But hey, whatever method you use, it doesn't need to last 100,000 years - 1000 should be more than enough for civilization to have been wiped out by ecosystem collapse, or at least recognize what a serious mistake they made as they teeter on the brink.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 24 2018, @01:46PM (3 children)
The cryo-nerds have some theories about controlling the crystallization process so that a large crystal forms more or less all at once, with minimal "fault lines" (I hear that and I think: that's how you do a lobotomy, with a planar disruption, but... I'm not a potential customer anyway.)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:30PM (2 children)
My understanding is that *any* crystallization is a major problem - water crystals are considerably larger than the water that they form from, as well as being prone to growing sharp spikes - both of which do a good job of rupturing the cells you're trying to preserve. The trick for most cryogenics is to cool the water so quickly that it becomes a glass rather than crystallizing. The second trick is to thaw it out quickly enough that the super-cooled water doesn't have a chance to freeze as it warms up.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 24 2018, @05:30PM
O.K. - sorry, it was the glassification I was remembering. Just for fun I investigated cryonics once back in 2003 after I saw a job opening in West Palm Beach at a cryonics company... at the time it was a: do not walk, RUN away from this opportunity - as fast and as far as possible, but entertaining to read about nonetheless. I doubt that the field has advanced tremendously in the last 15 years.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @11:41PM
link [bu.edu] (PDF)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @04:37AM
Fotrunately we already have one pre-built by serious Biblical scholars: https://arkencounter.com/ [arkencounter.com]
It's life size and a perfect replica of the One True Ark. It doesn't float. Obviously in the old days they used alien ancient pyramid secrets to float giant wooden boats that we just can't do anymore. Things we so much better in those days.
(Score: 2, Funny) by DECbot on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:56AM (1 child)
You start selecting what is tasty and easy to breed and raise.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @01:10PM
So, rats. Granted, I don't know what they taste like, but they are certainly quite easy to breed and raise. Actually it's hard to prevent them from breeding …
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:18AM
Conservation prioritization, biology speech for some good ol' ethnic cleansing. Sorry you are not worthy of a spot on THE ark, time to die! That said we probably won't have to worry since they'll probably not be able to agree on anything. The worm-guy wants all the worms to live, the bird-person wants all the birds to live etc.
If one wants to be all sci-fi about it one would think the best solution would just be to invent a souped up version of the replicator, then we could just store the DNA sequence for anything and print on demand as was needed after the eventual flood.
Beyond that one would think Noah had left some blue prints around due to his prior work in the area. Lazy git ...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:33AM (2 children)
Who cares if you can reproduce a rat in a lab? What we need is a world (or three) where rats, and everything else you might want to put in an ark, can survive in the wild. How about we focus on that and forget about preparing for a mythical flood that lasts for 40 days and 40 nights. When this shit goes off the rails, it's going to be gone for 400,000 years or more.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Redundant) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday July 24 2018, @06:25AM (1 child)
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 24 2018, @11:38AM
There's a lot of good that comes from a catastrophic cleanse, but it's really unpleasant to live through.
As a species, we've only been really showing off for the last 100 years - 10,000 if you want to be generous. I would hope that we can demonstrate enough intelligence to not put ourselves down a painful hole for the next 100,000.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday July 24 2018, @06:19AM
One would have to machine an ISO Standard Cubit out of Titanium then place it on a soft lint-free cloth inside a glass jar of clean air, itself inside another glass jar of clean air.
With the lot of it kept in a bank vault in Paris.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday July 24 2018, @10:47AM
If we index the species in a seed bank or cryo-storage facility, that does not mean we can replant and thaw them out and presto! Have a restored ecosystem. A functional ecosystem is more like an emergent property than a puzzle with lots of pieces. Once an ecosystem is gone you're never going to get it back exactly. You might get a simulacrum back, and hope rapid speciation takes care of the rest.
A similar phenomenon obtains in the human sphere, too. A team at work performs really well, but then Howie, the not so high performing but loveable character leaves and everything falls apart because he was the glue that held the stronger egos together. One polity starved for resources beats the odds and dominates its neighbors while a wealthy one falls apart through bickering.
We have always waved that off as "chemistry," but network theory has been doing some interesting work on network decoherence that seems to have explanatory power.
Washington DC delenda est.