this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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Biodiversity

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Welcome to c/Biodiversity @ Mander.xyz!

A community about the variety of life on Earth at all levels; including plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi.



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Biodiversity is a term used to describe the enormous variety of life on Earth. It can be used more specifically to refer to all of the species in one region or ecosystem. Biodiversity refers to every living thing, including plants, bacteria, animals, and humans. Scientists have estimated that there are around 8.7 million species of plants and animals in existence. However, only around 1.2 million species have been identified and described so far, most of which are insects. This means that millions of other organisms remain a complete mystery.

Over generations, all of the species that are currently alive today have evolved unique traits that make them distinct from other species. These differences are what scientists use to tell one species from another. Organisms that have evolved to be so different from one another that they can no longer reproduce with each other are considered different species. All organisms that can reproduce with each other fall into one species. Read more...

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In the mid-1990s physicists Geoffrey West and Louis Bettencourt collaborated with biologists to study allometric scaling laws, where it is generally found that larger organisms are more efficient consumers of energy than smaller ones. After mathematically explaining these laws through fractal network effects, the researchers began applying them to the human built environment, particularly cities.

Certain environmentalists and sustainability advocates mistook the significance of these results, leading to decades of policy work and investments in urban growth that, West now admits, are doomed to fail.

The fact that so many, including the originators of the work, got this story wrong reflects the cultural blinders and techno-biases that typify most of us living in high energy modernity. Doing the opposite of our conditioned response to the overshoot predicament will likely lead to more favorable outcomes.

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Cross-posting for the biology lesson.

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