TROPHIC CASCADE Some time ago I shared a video about a trophic cascade produced by the re-introduction of the grey wolf into Yellowstone National Park. The video was a first and the phenomenon just that, a phenomenon and a curiosity. What though, if trophic cascades were the rule and not the exception? Trophic Cascades point to the obvious, the interrelatedness of all life on the planet. Life will expand to use available resources (water, carbon, oxygen and minerals) and to occupy new habitats in ever expanding and growing populations. In the process of expading and evolving these populations adapt to new conditions and experiment with new behaviours, creating intraspecies diversity. Here is another trophic cascade, this one a little more tenuous because of the scale on which these observations are made, brought on by the return of large ocean mammals who stir the ocean waters, leave fecal plumes in their wake, that nurture plankton that sustain fish populations. What is most interesting to me though, is not that such phenomena exist, but that we are learning how to observe and see these things. As we see them our view of man in nature can only change for the better.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 15:12:50 +0000
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