5. PESTICIDES. In wild grasslands up to one third of the living mass of plants is eaten by herbivores. In our crop fields just 10 percent is eaten. The difference is in part the result of the more than 2.3 billion kilograms of pesticides we use annually to control pests. Though in holding back the pests, we also kill many beneficial species and favor varieties resistant to our pesticides. Resistance to pesticides has evolved in hundreds of species of insects. In addition to pesticides for insects, farmers also use fungicides to kill fungi. Nearly all fungicides have led to the evolution of new resistant strains of plant pathogens (Gould).
6. HERBICIDES. Any patch of land, left alone, will tend to sprout with plants bent on outcompeting each other, rising higher and higher into the sky to win access to the sun. Once, we prevented such competition by weeding our fields and sorting crop seeds from weed seeds, one by one. This selection depended on visual acuity and caused multiple lineages of weeds to evolve seeds resembling those of our crops. Now we exclude weeds using herbicides, whether in our lawns or our fields, before they bear their seeds. The weeds evolve resistance to herbicides, becoming invisible to our chemicals rather than our eyes. More than a hundred species of weeds have evolved resistance to one or another herbicide. We clear the ground, till the soil and spray the fertilizer and herbicide, and when we do, row by row the resistant weeds grow.
7. ENVIRONMENTAL TOXINS. The environmental toxins we produce are everywhere. Often they influence the health and well-being of species around us; sometimes they also influence their evolution. PCBs (aka polychlorinated biphenyls) were once used in industrial coolants. Whereas PCBs are good coolants, they are toxic. PCBs kill fish and other animals, in part by blocking one of the receptors in their bodies, AHR2. The fish with ordinary receptors simply died where PCBs were plentiful, leaving behind food and habitat. Those fish with slightly different receptors, to which the PCBs bound less well, survived and eventually thrived. PCBs were never meant to be used to control other species. Nevertheless, they had the effect of killing some (but not all) of the species and individuals they came into contact with, strongly favoring the individuals with resistance of one form or another. Nor are PCBs unique. Many of our pollutants—be they heavy metals, cadmium, oil and others—appear to lead to rapid evolution of tolerant and, at least sometimes, toxic creatures.
8. OF MICE (AND RATS) AND MEN. Mice and rats have been following humans since at least the origins of agriculture more than 10,000 years ago. It is easy to imagine we have probably been trying to kill them for nearly as long. More recently, however, we've been poisoning these pests, offering them tempting treats laced with deadly chemicals. Rats living in forests and other wild places are attracted to new foods in particular and so feed readily from such baits. Rats living with humans are not, at least not anymore. Present them with a new food and they will wait. Several authors have suggested that this "neophobia" in urban rats has evolved in response to the threat posed to rats and mice by our new "foods." For now, the little we know about the evolution of neophobia fits with this idea. The clearest evolutionary change in rats and mice as a result of our interference has been the evolution of resistance to the rat poison warfarin. We then created superwarfarin to target these resistant populations, but resistance to this poison has recently evolved (Mayumi et al., 2008). Once again our garden of neglect is seemingly growing out of our control.
9. URBAN JUNGLE. Plant species living in urban environments tend to be surrounded by patches of habitat less suitable than the ones in which they are situated. Seeds that disperse far from their mothers are more likely to end up in those less suitable surroundings (think: concrete or pavement; Cheptou et al., 2008). As a consequence some city plants have evolved to produce fewer, larger seeds that fall near them rather than smaller ones that can disperse farther away. Although this type of quick evolution lends a short-term survival advantage, it may mean that these plants are less robust to adapt to a changing environment in the future. Meanwhile, thousands of other city species are acquiring new survival mechanisms despite the ways we build our cities, whether that means evolving the ability to eat concrete, call more loudly to their mates or simply find a place among our towers of glass and steel to hide.
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16 Comments
Add CommentGaea is annoyed at her naughty children, and she will have the last word or whimper as the case may be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMan is not exempt from the Laws of Nature. What we will become in the future is at stake. We have introduced mutagens in our food and water supplies not to mention totally polluting the environment. Add to that the fact we go to extraordinary lengths to preserve defective genes in our own species. If a animal's body rejects a fetus, I believe the body knows more than any doctor about what genes should be carried into the future. Yes, it's cruel but Mother Nature is a bitch and as we all Mother knows best.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHumanity no longer relies on Darwinian biological evolution for our greatest adaption. Culture - an external resevoir of language, technology, art and science adapts and presrves change and mutates at a rate thousands of times faster than biology. Some culrures evolve faster where they are more responsive to environmental challenge. Democracy and consumer economies are clearly among those,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou'd think that the rats with resistance to the anticoagulant poison, warfarin, would now be vulnerable to a pro-coagulant poison.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's a thought: unless and until we destroy ourselves, a very real possibility, we are in an evolutionary race as always against diseases that see us as food and lodging but at maniac speeds. Viri, prions, anti-biotic resistant bacteria, similar fungi, adapt at remarkable speeds basically exploiting the adaptive properties of DNA/RNA transmission, not all of it sexual, some of it literally percolating through the ground and water. Against that we have our neural/artificial information systems that must try to stay ahead of the biological responses. If we do, we win, if we don't, the plagues win. Game on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the context of the evolution of life, what is a 'harmful result'? Is it one in which almost all life becomes extinct but recovers, or not? Perhaps we are not the intended ultimate product of evolution...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother "add" to this list is the adaption of ant hill locations next to the freeways. They are there because that's where the food source is: soda cans, food wrappers, fast food leftovers, and the like.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd yet another one is the apparent adaptation of the blackbirds sitting on the fog line...they are waiting for the same food source and what would have sent them into flight a few decades ago -- large, noisy object moving at speed towards them -- is not a concern. It's a catering delivery vehicle.
Одна часть природы стала доминировать над остальной частью что бы сделать их своим придатком.Это примерно как одна клетка организма решила доминировать над всем организмом.Человечество прибавляя ум теряет разум.Сон разума рождает чудовищ.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSure, that's easy for you to say.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe author neglects the BY-FAR-AND-AWAY most important impact humans could have on terrestrial life or biota. That is the TERRAFORMING of MARS, something well within our present technological capability. The greatest and most Responsible Endeavor Human Civilization can undertake is to carry Terrestrial Life to other planets & moons in this Solar System. The #1 goal of Life is to expand to new environments. In order for Life on Earth to expand it needs the help of humans, who can Terraform other planets to make them suitable for Terrestrial life. If you look at Mother Earth as a Living Organism, often called Gaia, then one can consider that the SOLE PURPOSE of humans is to take the PROGENY OF GAIA to other worlds. Thus Humans are the agents of reproduction for GIA. A truly NOBLE goal, to bond all people of Earth together in a singular quest. Humans may come & go, but we could create a wonderful legacy that would last BILLIONS OF YEARS. An achievement that would be the greatest event in the history of Terrestrial life since the Precambrian explosion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMars is actually an easy planet to Terraform, and can be done in a trivial one hundred years. Expanding Terrestrial Eco-systems to another World, makes up for all the damage humans have done to the Earth by a billion-fold. We have abandoned our duty to Mother Earth by our failure to embrace Space Colonization. A run-of-the-mill, Nuclear Powered Transport would get to Mars in 39 days. There is NO as in ZERO other Environmentally Responsible Act Humans have EVER Undertaken that even remotely compares to our SOLEMN DUTY to Terraform Mars.
Robert Zubrin shows how we can Terraform Mars in a few decades:
www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/zubrin.htm
"...In a matter of several decades, using such an approach Mars could be transformed from its current dry and frozen state into a warm and slightly moist planet capable of supporting life. Humans could not breath the air of the thus transformed Mars, but they would no longer require space suits and instead could travel freely in the open wearing ordinary clothes and a simple SCUBA type breathing gear. However because the outside atmospheric pressure will have been raised to human tolerable levels, it will be possible to have large habitable areas for humans ..simple hardy plants could thrive in the CO2 rich outside environment, and spread rapidly across the planets surface. In the course of centuries, these plants would introduce oxygen into Mars's atmosphere in increasingly breathable quantities.."
What makes you think the singularity circa 2045 does not mean that we will have helped launch the spread of the next leap in intelligence outward into deep space rather than spewing self replicating nucleic acid around the near solar system? What in the end is so inherently sacred about biologic intelligence other than it is really slow and apparently self destructive?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat could well be, maybe - or maybe more like 2245. But what does that have to do with Terraforming Mars and Greenie-ism. The big International Globalist push is this "Green Agenda" and "Sustainability" and "Low Impact", so what I have shown is if you believe in those things, they are trivial and insignificant compared with building a New Earth, an entire World Ecosystem - well within our ability, on Mars and maybe some other planets or moons. Our failure to pursue this goal is the greatest act of Eco-destruction in the history of human civilization.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs the saying goes, "Don't worry about the planet. The planet will be fine. People, on the other hand will be... " uh, in trouble. Possibly not strictly true, we could trigger a final extinction event. Whether or not that's so is beside the point, however.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA commenter said: "Perhaps we are not the intended ultimate product of evolution..."
There is no intended product of evolution/natural selection. It's just a description of how and why life alters over time.
The greatest and most Responsible Endeavor Human Civilization can undertake is to carry Terrestrial Life to other planets & moons in this Solar System.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOH YEAH and turn the whole universe into a toxic dump! Nice one dude!
Stupidest comment EVER! The whole universe is already a toxic dump by your greenie standards - know what extreme radiation is? heavy metals? toxic, poisonous atmosphere? runaway global warming? no life whatsoever? acid rain extraordinaire? smog like nothing that has ever been seen ANYWHERE on the Earth?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell all of that and more is the STANDARD in the universe, apart from our little green oasis called the Earth. And yep, humans and only humans can move that little green oasis to the planet Mars and someday even beyond that. A real treasure, that destroys Greenie Cultists sicko view of the Earth's environment.
Humans are different from other animals because they are intelligent. They are so intelligent they use tools, not only to get food, but also to go far places and not work so hard. Thus, they exploited the fossil fuel they found on or near the ground. And, intelligent as we are, these fuels were pursued in the ground. And we developed fertilizer from these fossils, and cut down trees to farm more land. This allowed the human population to increase. So intelligent. We use even more fossil fuels, for electricity, for cars, for trucks, for combines, for air conditioners, and many other things. So intelligent that we have put enough carbon in our atmosphere, with not enough trees or other plants to absorb a significant amount of it, that temperature will steadily increase. Droughts will spread, coastal areas will be flooded. This intelligent species will not survive beyond another 500 years.
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