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| Europe |
| Super Predators And Mass Extinctions |
| 2005-06-29 |
| Mass extinctions seem to occur on Earth roughly every 26 million years, leading some scientists to propose that they may be caused by rare collisions with comets or asteroids. A researcher in Poland thinks it may be possible that extraordinary predators are at fault instead. Adam Lipowski (Adam Mickiewicz University) constructed a numerical model of many species competing for both food and living space. The model also included a term that controls mutation rates, allowing new species to develop over time. The model shows that, much of time, the system is populated with "medium efficiency" predators whose numbers fluctuate only slightly as the prey population waxes and wanes. Inevitably, their stable community is disrupted when mutations lead to a super predator that quickly decimates the prey population, which in turn leads to its own demise. The few creatures that survive the predatory apocalypse gradually mutate to fill the existing ecological niches - and the cycle begins again. The period of the cycle depends on mutation rates in the model. The lower the mutation rate, the longer the periods between super predators. For a sufficiently low mutation rate, the model can lead to cycles that correspond to our 26 million year mass extinctions. Previous models that do not show these sorts of cycles could be faulty, according to Lipowski, because they failed to account for the effects of limited living spaces shared by a large number of different species. |
| Posted by:Spavirt Pheng6042 |
| #16 swamp collies..that's cruel bk..imina call D of A. |
| Posted by: Threresing Crinerong3617 2005-06-29 22:54 |
| #15 I don't think Ship's ever driven I-81, Barb... |
| Posted by: Fred 2005-06-29 22:42 |
| #14 yellow dawgs, you mean swamp collies? |
| Posted by: bk 2005-06-29 22:27 |
| #13 Virginia's not that large a state Barb. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-06-29 18:43 |
| #12 Saw the headline and thought "Dean eating the liberals?" |
| Posted by: Charles 2005-06-29 16:59 |
| #11 A Super Disease would probably show the same effect. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-06-29 15:46 |
| #10 I thought the Terminator was talking about which classical music composer he wanted to be, Xbalanke. Didn't he say, "I'll be Bach"? ;-p |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2005-06-29 14:07 |
| #9 I tell you it's the Terminator. Like he says: "I'll be back!" |
| Posted by: Xbalanke 2005-06-29 13:52 |
| #8 I am still waiting for the man is evil conclusions. According to Earth First, the ideal human population of the earth is Zero. Hmmm do these people understand they are human??? WAIT maybe they are not. Now I am really confused |
| Posted by: SockPuppetofDoom2 2005-06-29 13:33 |
| #7 I'm o.k. with us, the cockroaches and the rats. As long as there are no jihadis left. |
| Posted by: BA 2005-06-29 10:04 |
| #6 And yellow dawgs of course. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-06-29 09:10 |
| #5 IIRC the 'super predators' were very specialized creatures. Man on the other hand is a grand generalist adapting to many varied conditions from the artic to the tropics, from the desert to mountain tops. His diet consists of almost any other creature and an equally broad selection of vegetation. After the next big one, it'll be us the rats and cockroaches making it to the next epoch. |
| Posted by: Omise Sholuting9208 2005-06-29 09:04 |
| #4 oh let me guess...the superpredator is....(drum roll) .....MAN! |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-06-29 08:19 |
| #3 So these super predators ate themselves into extinction? Does PETA know about this? |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-06-29 08:02 |
| #2 Yeah, I thought they had invented a new drone or something. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2005-06-29 07:52 |
| #1 Got excited for a moment there thinking this might be a write up on a new jihadi killer. |
| Posted by: Classical_Liberal 2005-06-29 01:10 |