Is Man the climax species?

[davecatt]

Trees are considered to be the vegetive Climax species, cut down a forest, clear the site back to grass land and leave it to nature and eventually you will end up with forest again.

Until man comes along again and starts clearing it, bit by bit, for agriculture and somewhere to live.

Have you ever considered the possibility that man may be the climax species of the animal world?

Despite all the technology we are created by nature ,our ability to be creative or destructive is given by nature,so all consequences of whatever we do are natural. But we also have the intelligence to realise the consequences of what we are doing.

Should we perhaps start considering that we may be part of a natural cycle?

We talk about the "last ice age".but has it actually ended yet? The Ice is still melting and water levels are still rising.

I have loads more thoughts and questions on the subject but no answers (yet).
Whats your thoughts?
Dave

[PMG]

I think you're having some interesting thoughts And I agree with your thoughts on us being nothing more than the climax species for now. I also think that human kind like the dinasaurs will die out quite naturally and is meant to as part of the natural succession and colonisation of the earth. I doubt we can put the genie back in the bottle and stop humans from using the earths rescources and that we will continue until there is nothing left to use. I don't mean that as carte blanche to go beserk and waste stuff tho that does depend on what each person thinks the term 'waste' covers in terms of carbon footprints etc. For some that will be air travel for holdays, fuel in cars, having too many children or even any children at all, keeping pets, using lots of technology - mobile phones, ipads, i pods, kindles, computers, laptops all using electricity, shopping, medical supplies, water thro the tap and so on - all the trappings of normal human life in developed countries. Its using resources and its life as we know it. I'm very wary of pointing the finger and saying 'you shouldn't be doing this or that' as its a very fine line between living a 'normal' life as it stands just now and being 'accused' of wasting what is available. We would be wasting our lives and its resources if we were all living in total denial of enjoying anything or doing anything because someone else had decided that it was 'wasteful' ...

Pauline

[RoyW]

Originally Posted by davecatt

Have you ever considered the possibility that man may be the climax species of the animal world?

A "climax species" perhaps, but I agree with PMG that man will eventually be followed by something else.
Man can certainly be considered a "keystone species" pretty much everywhere where we are found (everything that we do has a major effect on the other wildlife around us).


Something that I have thought about, which is similar but perhaps off topic, is whether the spread of some species as a result of mans actions should be considered natural. I would never consider the presence of species such as Ruddy Ducks, Ring-necked Parakeets, and American Mink in Britain to be natural, but I think that it is possible to argue the case for some others species, for example Brown and Black Rats.
Many plants and invertebrates are able to spread over considerable distances by hitching a lift on birds or mammals, or cross oceans on rafts of floating plant material. They may also spread over shorter distances by being carried, often accidentally, by larger organisms (eg. by birds/mammals collecting nest material without knowing about the presence of invertebrates or fungi). So unless we consider that the spread of humans around the planet is not natural, I would say that animals that are accidentally carried with us as we move around because their natural behaviour has resulted in them hitching a ride could be considered to have spread "naturally".
This doesn't mean that I think that we shouldn't try and prevent this type of spread, or remove rats spread in this way if they are causing problems for other species though (as is often the case on offshore islands).

[Jim Ford]

As a first order of approximation, the Earth is populated by bacteria. If bacteria could talk, they would sneer at humans and say 'KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid!"

Jim

[King Edward]

Originally Posted by RoyW

Something that I have thought about, which is similar but perhaps off topic, is whether the spread of some species as a result of mans actions should be considered natural...

I don't see any value in drawing this distinction. For all we might argue about native/alien species, the blunt fact is that the redistribution of vast numbers of species around the world by man is leaving a permanent stamp on the planet's biota. Millions of years into the future, whether we're still here or not, the effects will still be visible. One of the signatures, in fact, of the Anthropocene.

I think you also have to be very careful using the word 'natural'. If you extend this to every human activity, the word becomes meaningless, a synonym for 'reality'. Its value is in drawing a distinction between humans and the rest. Of course humans are part of nature, but equally we are a species incomparably different to any other by our use of technology. If we extend the word 'nature' to mean 'everything', we'll just need a new word to mean 'non-human nature'.

This 'climax species' label is unsatisfactory - human-dominated areas are not comparable to the natural stability of, say, a forest. Quite the opposite, in fact - there is a great deal of instability, since man is a naturally exploitative species. A forest is stable because of its inherent conservatism - nutrients are cycled, soil is accumulated, and jut about the only linear throughput is solar energy. Humans, though (since the advent of agriculture), have prospered by using up stored reserves (of fossil/nuclear energy, of soil, of biomass, of nutrients (e.g. rock phosphate reserves).

For a close-to-home example, UK agricultural land might look like humans have converted it from forest into a new, permanent, stable grassland/arable state. In reality, though, it's being maintained by non-renewable inputs of soil, fossil energy and nutrients which are being used (up) and then (literally) flushed down the toilet. Sooner or later, the whole system busts. Exactly how it will bust is anyone's guess.

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by davecatt

Trees are considered to be the vegetive Climax species, cut down a forest, clear the site back to grass land and leave it to nature and eventually you will end up with forest again. Until man comes along again and starts clearing it, bit by bit, for agriculture and somewhere to live.
Have you ever considered the possibility that man may be the climax species of the animal world?

While I certainly think that the notion of 'technological human' as something seperate from the rest of nature is a false proposition (an inheritance of Judeo-Christo-Islamic: "man shall have dominion" and rationalist "noble savage" paradigms) I'm not sure the 'climax species' label is helpful. In the example of 'trees' the definition is not of a species but a morphological type, albeit one that is only expressed within a limited cladistic range. Of course within given environments, particular tree species will behave as 'climax types', but even then the existence of forest is not of itself evidence that forest will automatically return in the face of catastrophic destruction. Much of the world's savannas and praries were once forest and forest fluctuation is often stimulated by very minor climatic change.

The growth of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s was encumbered by a lot of philosophical baggage, and although some of that played well in PR terms it's quite clear that romantic notions of 'pristine wilderness untouched by man', of nature as 'God's garden despoiled by man', and 'raw nature' as the setting for 'true man', are now extremly unhelpful. Humans are as much an expression of the natural evolution of this planet as the rest of its biology; there is nothing about us, be it our capacity to dig deep into the earth, escape the earth gravitational pull, build nuclear power plants or level mountains that is 'un-natural'. However whether doing any of theses things is 'smart' is a whole different question.

As a species we are endowed with a capacity to calculate effects at distant chronological points, it would therefore be entirely 'natural' for us to calculate that our current collective activity should be best adapted for our own interest and to change accordingly. Adapting in such a way might equate to the behaviour of a 'climax species', or it might equate to the behaviour of other 'terra forming' species such as termites.

Environmentalists have been happy to stick with the 'man as separate from nature' because it is easier to cast human activity as 'harmful' and therefore to use 'inactivity' as a notional good (at least it's not making things worse !). But this is not a sustainable description of humans as a species, rather it just locks the environmental debate into a medieval level of Dualism. The future of an environmental debate which effetively places value on all habitats and all flora a fauna, requires a recognition of humans as a species that builds and farms and excavates and dams, not as activities that are distinct from everything else in the biosphere but as an inevitable part of it.

CM

[davedotcom]

I may be a little (very) under qualified to give a valid opinion on this, but I would suggest that homo sapiens have to some extent made themselves into a climax species by removing some of the selection pressures that would have normally meant that natural selection would have limited or stopped us.

My understanding of the term Climax Species is that it is a species that 'will remain essentially unchanged in terms of species composition for as long as a site remains undisturbed'. A forest area may be a relatively easy example to quote whereas humans have complicated the matter somewhat.

Changes in climate could mean that a climax species ceases to be a climax species and is replaced by a pioneer or previous species. Throughout the Earth's history, the lands have had very different flora and fauna as the climate has changed.

I think that soon (although I guess 'soon' could be millions of years), selection pressures will have an impact on humans. We don't live in equilibrium, we take out much more than we put in, and I don't think the Earth can continue like that indefinitely. Also by removing some selection pressures now e.g. drugs keep us free from some disease, eventually diseases will evolve to become ever more resistant and have an impact. Then we'll no longer be the climax species.

Long live the cockroach!

[davecatt]

I propose that man kind is the climax species because unlike dinosaurs we have the capability to recognise the dangers that threaten us and do something about it. However I dont believe we can stop the process of nature,but perhaps we can prepare future generations to survive the change.

If you wished to respond to any of these hypothetical polls what would your answer be?

Poll 1: Is man a product of nature.
Yes or No

Poll 2: Are the climatic changes affecting our environment entirely the result of mans influence?
Yes or No

Poll 3: Will the change in climate result in a global rise in sea levels to the extent that mankind may be threatened with extinction?
Yes or No

Poll 4: Do you believe that man can undo what has already been done (to the environment)?
Yes or No

dave

[PMG]

Afraid I struggled with the complexities of your poll but if I had to answer without a 'don't know' category then I would say:
1. Yes
2. No
3. Yes
4. No

And my reasoning would be

1. we are made of the same 'stuff' chemically as everything else (and I'm very ignorant about chemistry not doing it at school) - there is to my knowledge no component in our bodies that is special to us - every element of us exists in other mammals - so we are natural in that sense. Just where or how the increased brain power, morals and ethics come from I don't know.

2. As powerful, destructive and interferring humans can be nature is a bigger force with more clout than us.

3. At first I thought no as in no not immediately but eventually - then I conceded possibility and changed it to yes! But there;s a but - I can think of other things that might happen before that which might wipe us out a lot faster.

4. And finally just a simple no - if we were to be vaporised off the planet now - all however many billion we've got to removed in the twinkling of an eye, the changes to this point cannot be undone - the earth would not look like it did before we arrived. Just by being here even if there was only one human we would change the dynamics - billions of us changes everything and leaves a marker. The idea that if we all lived impeccably we could get the earth back to 'pristine' is a severly warped idea.

Pauline

[davedotcom]

Following Pauline's responses, here are mine, along with 'whys'

Poll 1: Is man a product of nature.
Yes - My opinon is that we are not very different to the animals around us, more closely related to some, less to others, but animals none the less.

Poll 2: Are the climatic changes affecting our environment entirely the result of mans influence?
No - I've recently been studying Global Warming as part of my OU Natural Science degree and the evidence (at least to me) shows that the earth goes through these changes constantly over milliions of years. I think that our polluting of the earth contributes to climate change, but I feel that there is a bigger cycle at play.

Poll 3: Will the change in climate result in a global rise in sea levels to the extent that mankind may be threatened with extinction?
Yes - I think 'Yes' if all of the pressures that would go with a rise in sea level would bring are also taken into account. Sea level rise on it's own would just mean more competition but not cause extinction.

Poll 4: Do you believe that man can undo what has already been done (to the environment)?
[b]No[/B - ]I think some things such as nuclear testing will have effects too long lasting for us to clean up. We have unbalanced ecosystems to a point where they can't be put back to how they were. As Pauline says, if we all lived perfectly, we couldn't undo it all.