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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: 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]