Population control
I'm very glad to see the commitment of the North Americans in assume the = guilt for them. Maybe I should alleviate my consciousness, but I'm not. = Unlike most of them, I do not consider the CO2 emissions the only one or = the major problem driven climate change. I'm still concerned with habitat losses; someone stated that there are = probably more people in USA than in Brazil. Considering for a moment = that this is true, and how about the carrying capacity??? I wonder if = the biomes and habitats of the North America could absorb more humans = than the environment here in Brazil. That's seems unreal?? Not so, let's remember that the species ranges are = in general very smaller in the tropics than in the temperate regions = (Rapoport's rule), the species richness is higher and also the = complexity of the biotic interactions is both higher and more = species-specific. Some months ago a paper in Nature was published = suggesting that disturbance in diverse and complex mutualisms nets are = more prone to lead to species extinctions than nets with few species. I = think that are to much environmentalist's statements here that lacks an = ecological scientific framework behind. Brazil isn't only the huge and wild Amazon. We have (yet) another type = of rainforest bordering all the Atlantic Coast (more than 8.000 km) = somewhat different from the Amazon in species and processes. It was 90% = cleared due to population growth and land use. Now, if you had the patience to read all this, please, do a search in = the 'web of science' or in the 'google scholar' and see how many papers = you will find about the role of the rainforests in the global carbon = balance and the effects of forest clearing on the rise of the = atmospheric temperature. All the best - Osmar=20
Re: population control - about the shrimp farms
Hi Matheus, I respect your 'social' view of shrimp farms. But this is not unanimity within Brazilian researchers. Even so that the shrimp farms is considered a pervasive culture for many ngo's and environmental groups established in northeastern Brazil where you live. The major concern is about the shrimp farm that is planned for the south Bahia region. Close to the biggest and most diverse coral reef complex of the Brazilian coast. Anyone that knew a little bit of marine ecology is aware of the existent links between the coral reefs and mangroves. Mangroves act as critical nursery grounds for important reef fishes that sustain the fisheries that feed the same people you want to 'help' with the shrimp farms. For me, the social benefit of shrimp farms at the cost of mangrove destruction and consequently risk of fisheries collapse is the same as solving a problem creating another one. Best wishes Osmar Santos, Brazil - Original Message - From: Matheus Carvalho [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 11:07 PM Subject: Re: population control - about the shrimp farms To increase complexity even more, I think it is worthy to say that shrimp farms not always displace populations, and I risk to say that in some places, at least from my personal experience, they do the opposite, they bring people. Most of us are aware of negative impacts of shrimp farms in some places in the world, like in Ecuador or Southwest Asia. I would like to say that in Brazil Northeast things are not quite the same, that no big environmental problem has occurred up till now and that if the industry is not growing at the moment, this is due mainly to macroeconomical reasons (cheap dollar). Some professionals are behind the opperation of these farms. They want a nice environment as much as any of us here. And I bet that the local population where these farms started to opperate are now much better than before. Why I say so? How many of us here really know Brazilian Northeast? Well, I lived there most of my life and then I will say here what I saw and lived, and not what I read or heard. In Brazilian Northeast, people are poor, especially people far from big cities. On the coast line, they have one choice: to fish. In the country side, they may try to do agriculture. But rain does not come every year, so they have two choices: stay and die or migrate to a better place. This has been the reallity for centuries there. And now the shrimp farms came. You know the nice thing of shrimp farms? It is that they use seawater, or brackish water. Then, different from normal agriculture, they can be done even in harsh places like Brazililan Northeast (ok, Brazilian Northeast is vast and of course there are oasis there; but the general situation is like I said). Then, shrimp farms gives another choice for people there. Some of us may find it romantic to live from the mangrove and catch some crabs to survive. Well, I don't. It is not nice. Nobody who has ever done it think it is nice. They much more prefer to ride some kayaks and feed the shrimps three times a day (I did and enjoyed, much better than body building for the backs). More than the exercise, they get some money and can give much better lifes for their families. In order not to write a treatise, I finish here. In short, I only want to present a perhaps different view of Brazilian shrimp farms. Regards to all, Matheus --- William Allison [EMAIL PROTECTED] escreveu: To pursue Osmars's logic a little farther and add more complexity, third world poor are often displaced to marginal, high risk areas by government or by them as have the clout and means to persuade government to allow it (to put in a resort, replace mangroves with shrimp farm, etc, etc) so the footprint of both rich and poor increases. Bill On 12/1/07, Osmar Luiz Jr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I just wondered what kind of people developed this ecological footprint quiz, because for me its seen biased and flawed. Naïve, at best. You said that first world kids will have larger footprints that third world kids. Because poor third world kids don't travel by planes, they walk by feet because his parents don't have a car, share it houses with many of people and doesn't eat meat or industrialized food because don't have money for buy it. But I've not seen in that quiz questions about if the shanty town you live was built over a former pristine rainforest bush, how many trees must be down to build your wooden house and what the oxygen dissolved rate in the water of that river which you and your family deject your feces. This certalinly will improve the footprint of the poor third world kids. You should make all the questions. That `footprint quiz` could made first world people feels guilt. But again your eco-attitudes will be useless and short-reached if population
Re: She will not have babies
A third world view on childfree ideology. Here in Brazil, anyone who decides to not have kids in an attempt to save the world, will soon became frustrated in seeing uneducated and miserable couples in slums having 6 or 7 or even 10 children. The decision is clearly useless and is clear to me that the only solution is a massive education program for ignorant people, teaching contraception techniques and a government incentive of a free and voluntary sterilization. I know that these measures are very polemic, but you must realize that few couples in poor countries having many children will overcome dozens of childfree Americans or Europeans. So, if you don't want to have kids, its ok, being a mother or a father is not for anyone because it's a hard task. But do not try to convince your friends who want it, because being a father (and, I wonder, a mother also) is one of the biggest happiness that a human being could have. Best wishes for everyone, Osmar (Father of an amazing smart one year old boy!!)
Re: Another picture
Hello, I've been out of this list for many years and signed it again two days ago. I'm very glad to see that it shifted from mainly naive questions about environmentalism to serious discussions about the science of ecology like that exciting messages about the niche theory. Back to the central issue of this message, we must remember that the science of ecology is defined as an study of the relationships of the organisms with the environment and/or other organisms. This implies that the ecology science is also concerned with population dynamics, symbiosis, physiological constraints and several other properties of organisms, not environments. At best, environmental science could be considered some branch of the community ecology. But my felling is that while ecology is a organism-oriented science, environmental science is a more holistic science with emphasis on abiotic characteristics. Apologizes for the bad English Osmar J. Luiz Jr. Ecology MSc student Zoology Dept. Universidade Estadual de Campinas Brazil
Re: unoccupied niches and 'competitive exclusion
Well, I usually don't think in the niche as some sort of entity like some people do. In my vision, the niche is a set of opportunities that an organism is able to explore. It can be constrained in part by the conditions offered by the environment and part by the phylogenetic restrictions of the organism. In this way, the niche in neither pre-defined by the environment or by the organism, but by a conjunction of both. Of course, we have a lot of examples of convergent evolution in quite non-related taxons that lead us to assume some defined particular condition driven speciation, but by the other hand there are examples of mass extinctions of entire clades that could not adapt its morphologies to new environmental conditions. Determine when one factor is more important than other is a way to assume this dual facet of the niche and may render better conclusions than keep trying to find rigid theoretical definitions. apologizes for the english Osmar Luiz Jr. Brazil - Original Message - From: Warren W. Aney [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: Friday, November 23, 2007 4:18 PM Subject: Re: unoccupied niches and 'competitive exclusion Does the species define the niche? Or (in evolutionary terms) does the niche define the species? David seems to be saying that the species defines the niche and Bill seems to be arguing that the niche exists independent of the species filling it. Did Darwin's Galapagos finches evolve to fit pre-existing niches, or did they define the niche as they evolved? Warren W. Aney Tigard, Oregon -Original Message- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of William Silvert Sent: Friday, November 23, 2007 1:31 AM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: unoccupied niches and 'coppetitive exclusion This is how Hutchinson defined it, and his disciples have blocked any attempt to generalise the term, but many of us feel that a more general definition is more useful. For example, if a species becomes extinct, does its niche vanish with it? Since generally something will replace it, it makes sense to describe the displacing species as moving into a vacant niche. Of course the new species may have a somewhat different niche, but I think of a niche as similar to an apartment -- new occupants my move the walls and make some changes, but basically they occupy the same space. Unfortunately any attempt to generalise the niche concept runs into the philosophy that definitions should never change. I have written about the niche as a fuzzy set for example (which is basically what you see in any book on niche packing even though they don't use the word), but since Hutchinson didn't use the word fuzzy, the concept is verboten. Bill Silvert - Original Message - From: David Hilmy [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: Friday, November 23, 2007 4:25 AM Subject: Re: unoccupied niches and 'coppetitive exclusion The concept of =93niche=94 is very much defined around a specific = species- the term itself is something of a misnomer in ecological terms because we = assume the traditional noun to describe a physical space or an element of = habitat, or in the argument of some posted here, a set of habitat/ecosystem/geographical parameters that are independent of the species itself as though somehow =93vacant=94, yet the term as I have = always understood it to be refers more accurately to the way in which a = particular organism fits into the ecosystem... Esta mensagem foi verificada pelo E-mail Protegido Terra. Scan engine: McAfee VirusScan / Atualizado em 23/11/2007 / Versão: 5.1.00/5170 Proteja o seu e-mail Terra: http://mail.terra.com.br/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.4/1147 - Release Date: 23/11/2007 09:19
