Environments are Heterogeneous

Ideas

Thoughts

1. Science is political? Heterogeneity not homogeneity environments in nature.
2. I still don't get it, the presence of more than one different 'best' fit organism in a particular environment. How does this not contradict with the theory of evolution?
3. Heterogeneity in human communities.
4. The mistake of forcing homogeneity in human communities.
5. Quran: mustard seed (given as an example of a very small thing).

Do

1. Documenting species of Ferdaws Garden, as part of the Human Centered Design course.

Digest

• "Why species that live in the same environment are often profoundly different?"
• "A plant utilizing sunlight, a fungus living on the plant, a herbivore eating the plant and a parasitic worm living in the herbivore should all coexist in the same community."
• "There are no homogeneous environments in nature."
• "What appears to the human observer as a homogeneous environment may, to an organism within it, be a mosaic of the intolerable and the adequate."
• "To a mustard seed, a grain of soil is a mountain; and to a caterpillar, a single leaf may represent a lifetime’s diet."
• "A seed lying in the shadow of a leaf may be inhibited in its germination while a seed lying outside that shadow germinates freely."
• Gradients in an environment can also be:
• in space: altitude
• in time
• rhythmic: daily and seasonal cycles
• directional: the accumulation of a pollutant in a lake
• erratic: fires, hailstorms and typhoons
• "Heterogeneity can alter communities by interrupting what would otherwise be a steady march to an equilibrium state"

Mustard seeds

Questions

1. Why are there no homogeneous environments in nature?
2. What is the effect of artificially enforcing homogeneous man made environments?
3. What is the relationship, if any, between homogeneity and diversity?