On Thu, October 5, 2006 11:49, markpeaty wrote: > That said, I read with interest a year or two ago about certain kinds > of insects [I think they are in North America somewhere] which lie > dormant in the earth in some pre-adult stage for a PRIME number of > years, 11, 13, were chosen by different species. Apparently the payoff > for this strategy is that few predator species can match this length of > time, and repeating cycles of shorter periods cannot 'resonate' so as > to launch a large cohort of predators when the prey species produces > its glut after waiting for the prime number of years.
An alternative hypothesis put forth, equally plausible to me, is that different species co-evolved to be dormant different prime numbers of years. This would create the minimum competition for environmental resources as they came out of their dormant period; prime numbers having the largest least common multiple. Of course they didn't do this with any intention or awareness; natural selection on random variations in dormancy period length would favor this kind of outcome. -Johnathan --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
