Word: ecosystems
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...moralistic, a sort of participatory nastiness. But does it play a heroic moral role hitherto unnoticed? Is gossip merely a swamp that breeds mosquitoes and disease? ("Each man walks with his head in a cloud of poisonous flies," wrote Tennyson.) Or does it have higher functions in the ecosystem...
...other hand, it might lead to disaster. This presumption seems ludicrous since the world has been losing species for millions of years. Human beings may have increased the pace of species elimination, yet with a few million still extant, the disappearance of more each century should hardly strain the ecosystem...
Even if man only cared for himself and saw beasts and plants as objects to deal with, he should reconsider how he wants to exploit them. Clearing a forest to heat homes for only a year may serve many, but in the long run, that forest and the ecosystem that died with it might have been more valuable to man for quality-of-life reasons. Man should strive for more than just propagating his species; he should also improve the quality of each life. To maintain our numbers and increase them, eradication of other species would probably be necessary...
...always in the past, so in the future: each ecosystem will produce its own specialized creatures. Relocated deserts will give rise to new animals capable of enduring for months without water, like the cameloid yet kangaroo-like desert leaper, able to store fat and other nutrients in its tail. Dixon proposes new islands settled by bats, which will evolve into forms specially adapted to exploit each of the islands' food sources. One group could well develop into an aquatic species capable of using its winged forelimbs for swimming. Another could, in the absence of competition, turn into the carnivorous...
...rain forest illustrates the variety of environments dependent on water, and contains tall, exotic Amazonian trees, vines, shrubs, a waterfall, a stream and leafy ground cover, as well as lizards, snakes and frogs. From the visitors' platform one can take in the full glory of a complete ecosystem almost ten stories above the Inner Harbor, and at the same time view the vista of a redeveloped Baltimore embracing the horizon...