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I was reading something from The Immense Journey by Loren Eisley last night. Its the chapter where Eisley goes on and on about the abyss, the deep ocean, and how it was only secondarily colonized. this was back in the 40s or 50s when Eisley wrote it. He said that scientists used to think life developed and came from the deep but now we know that wasn't true.

30-50 years later, Hydrothermal vent ecosystems based entirely on chemosynthetic bacteria that oxidize sulfur were discovered and now the hypothesis is that life likely developed in places like that. Yet Eisley, a rather good scientist and physical anthropologist, an intelligent person, was so sure that life couldn't have originated down there.

We didn't have all the information, we still don't have all the information.

You could use physical evidence of implied CO2 emmissions to imply anthropogenic acceleration.

I'm not sure, myself. I'm not a climatologist. I don't know much about that science. I know quite a bit about water resources, so I could easily argue that the impact of human pollution upon fresh and marine waters of the world is unsustainable. I don't know about climate change though.

Hydropsychid caddisflies interesting but a bit over my head i was on the verge of moving up from lures to fly fishing when i moved to the city so never got into studying aquatic bugs/fish feeding..  the size, color, type, movement, placement, of lures to attract trout in varying water temps, conditions i have a good experiential  knowledge of..

on solutions-  my only idea is for scientists to do more studying/research (which they do any way)

The only reason it sounds like its over your head is because I'm using terms that you aren't familiar with. Most biology, while not for idiots, can be understood by nonbiologists if terms are explained and processes are described in detail. People know what a flower looks like. So you open a flower up and show them the different parts inside and what functions they have, and you use metaphor and visuals. Most people think biology goes over their heads because we use a scientific language, its faster, but in the vernacular most of it makes sense.

Solutions would be good. If either of you have any I'm sure that the scientific community would be interested, because as far as I know, we don't have a clue how to fix it either.

Just thinking some more about Hydropsychid caddisflies....I would love to get an aquarium set up that could be easily viewed so I could take tones and tones of pictures of hydropsychid net retreats, actually, of hydropsychoidea net retreats in general. I mean, philopotamids make elongate sack nets with extremely fine mesh, Polycentropodids may trumpet shaped nets or open ended tube nets, Psychomyiids build complex tube networks on rocks out of sand, Dipseudopsids make their tube networks underground with entrance and exit holes and build a net within one tube through which they siphon water to collect detritus. Its just all so cool.

troutnut. com - i am guessing a big fish can be caught with one? cool looking bug by the way

Caddisfly larvae are aquatic, almost all species have aquatic larvae in that order, and the rest are semiaquatic. As adults they have vestigial mouthparts, can drink but can't feed, and look very much like moths. As larvae, their forms and habitats are diverse, from temporal ponds to streams, lakes, wetlands, springs and seeps, waterfalls, big rivers, and there are even species that inhabit tidepools. In addition to that, caddisfly larvae produce silk which they use to construct net seine retreats or other underwater capture net apparati, portable cases, and do other amazing behavioral things. Cheumatopsyche species are part of the family Hydropsychidae, the net-seine spinning caddisflies. These construct annular structures from which they hang silk nets that look like fishing seines to collect debris or invertebrates.

Since caddisflies are common in trout streams, trout fishers tend to be the people most interested in them, outside of Trichopterology and aquatic ecology.

Edit: was looking for some cooler pictures of Hydropsychid nets and found these:

And just because:





Pimp some (I believe) pictures of Cheumatopsyche. Larvae of Cheumatopsyche species have a number of diagnostic characters, but one of the most striking things that most Cheumatopsyche larvae have when alive is the emerald green abdomen. The head sclerites also don't seem to have any patterns, which is true for all Nearctic species in the genus. There are a number of diagnostic characters which I would have to look at to be sure, such as the shape of the fortrochantin (notched), the size of the poststernite sclerites on the prothorax (usually small but in some species can be large, which can confuse you with the genus Hydropsyche except if they are larger the anteromedial emargination of the frontoclypeus lacks a medial notch), the shape of the sternites on the 9th abdominal segment (notched postereorly), and just make sure there isn't a tubercle at the anterior margin of the underside of the head (which would make it genus Potamyia). I learned all of that through patience.

kai
I kind of figured with you being in biology you would have a reasonable take on this. The fear mongering is my pet peeve with environmentalism, being stewards of the earth should be obvious, when i see the fear being spread i suspect ulterior/political motives or people buying the hype spread by those that have them.

on local extinction i agree niche species would be the most vulnerable , it is also true that nature abhors a vacuum better adapted life will always move in.

i don't know exactly how biodiversity works but it seems that bio diversity prospers in warm conditions and struggles in colder ones, the bigger threat to diversity i think may be us directly, pesticide/genetic seed companies, humans dragging life around the globe to environments it doesn't belong, plus all the pollution etc you already mentioned. the threat this in turn poses to us can come in unexpected forms (beehive collapse) and show up quickly


edit to add -- biodiversity also would seem to suffer during times of rapid change and prosper in times of steady or slow change, again i suspect the above mentioned human threats would be more likely to cause rapid change than changes to global temperature.

Biodiversity both initially flounders and then increases during and after times of rapid change. steady and slow change tends to have a gradual effect on biodiversity. Instead of a marked drop and leap, its a gradual curve. There is a hypothesis called punctuated equilibrium, that says that lineages change the greatest at punctuated intervals, usually after a catastrophic event. The Permian-Triassic Extinction event lead way to the age of reptiles. The Cretaceous-Tertiary event lead to the "age of mammals". And then we have the 10-20 million year precambrian diversification (most often more incorrectly called the cambrian explosion), caused most likely by the newly oxygenated conditions. This caused a broad diversification of lineages, but also was the end of the Ediacaran life from the period just before. The post Cambrian extinction event saw the loss of many of the weird body plans you would find in the Burgess Shale fossil beds. The point is, we see life's history on earth as having periods of slow change punctuated by catastrophic upheaval leading to extinction and diversification. The tree of life is more like the bush of life, with a few lineages making it and the rest not.

The reason you see diversification after extinction is as you noted above, open niches do not tend to stay open long. Millions of open niches will soon be filled (over millions of years) by diversification of other lineages that made it. Still, 99% percent of all species that ever existed are nonextant. We're left with the 1% of life that actually made it. And there is nothing to say that diversity used to be higher or is higher now, except possibly in angiosperms and insects (I'd argue that insects have been working their way up since the mid paleozoic and aside from the current human induced extinction event, there seems to be no limit to the diversity that can come out of the insect body plan).

Biodiversty prospers when the greatest number of niches are available. The perfect example of this is tropical rainforests. However, climate change will affect the rainforest in the same way that climate change will affect all ecosystems. I'm not so sure whats going to happen. I do know that humans are screwing diversity to hell right now.

I once heard a lecture in undergraduate about biodiversity. The professor told a story about how he was confronted by a teacher once, a chemistry teacher who believed that it would be okay to destroy all life on the planet if it would keep humans alive for one more moment. He didn't know how to argue this with his teacher, he was stunned. He never wanted us to be left the same way, so he gave us some reasons to value biodiversity, things like for medicinal value, for food, for all the environmental tasks they do that we often take for granted, for aesthetic value, but also for the intrinsic value of live itself. I've been reading Reinventing the Sacred as I've noted elsewhere on this forum, and what strikes me as the most important point in that book is the emergence of agency, will, values that are intrinsic to living organisms, from bacterium to mammals, an unremovable part of the system of life. Free will is apparent, because agency is irreducible to physics.

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Theres another essay I'm thinking of, by Barbara McClintock, the Nobel prize winner that worked with Corn genetics. It doesn't have so much to do with the above, but it has more to do with respect, and the kind of spiritual bond I see myself having with life. Many people wondered how she could work on such a long living organism as corn, when everyone else was working with bacteria. She said "you have to develop a relationship with your organism, you have to be patient and listen to what it has to say". Her patient and respectful relationship with her organism lead to our modern understanding of how genes move around in the DNA molecule, how they can be turned on and off. I want to see myself as having that bond with Cheumatopsyche as she had with Zea, but I also feel that bond to all insects.

you will have to excuse me for being a sceptic, when i was growing up we were in the beginning of an ice age and the scientists and media told us all to panic because of the coming food shortages, mass extinctions and endless winters.

being a sceptic and not a scientist i am trying to keep my opinions on the subject as common sense as possible. It seems to be a fairly even split between the man made and natural cycle proponents (in my view it is undecided ), yes climate change kills some species but the direct effects of pollution will do far more harm(amphibians), I don't trust politicians who use the issue or manipulate scientist (grant money)  or to create fears about the issue to gain power.
I suspect that the size and resilience of nature is not being given enough respect.   

Scientists are seldom the ones who spread panic. The ones who spread panic are the people in the media who take the summaries of the scientific paper, summarize those and then twist it to make it sound far beyond what it says. Thus you get perspectives which make it seem like scientific opinion is jumping back and forth, while the scientist have been cautions and just amassing data all along, some data says one thing, some says the other, all conclusions tenative till well supported.

I can see what you are saying though. The desctruction of tropical rainforest by logging and slash and burn, the killing of the oceans by chemicals, anoxic zones created by eutrophication in the gulf of mexico, low flows on rivers due to water overuse, all these other human caused events are making a massive change and they are not talked about, because people would rather speculate over some nebulous thing than sit down and actually make changes about things that are concrete. Make changes like limiting water use, fertilizer and pesticide use, saving rainforest land, cleaning up chemicals, actually doing something physical about the impact humans are having on the planet. People don't want to do it, one, because its easier to just argue, 2, because it costs money, and 3 because it means that people will have to change their lifestyles. The last one is the biggest one, by the way.

Also, just as a note, volcanic eruptions, continental drift, ect, all effect extinction rates specifically because of climate change. When people talk of global warming they think too local, too weather related. When people think of this in relation to extinction, they don't think local enough! Many species are isolated, specialists that can only survive within a certain climate. As the climate changes, they either have to move, change their biology, or go extinct. Local climate is a character of many factors, but is deeply effected by world and regional climate change. We still have no clue why the last ice age occured, or why it is ending. We have hypotheses, but we don't really know why global warming and cooling cycles occur. Regional and local is much easier. You can look at ocean currents and vegitation and human influences. But we don't know the bigger picture. Its all laden with chaos.

We should be very deeply interested however. There is absolutly no evidence to suggest that we will as a species in all certainty survive the next million years (or as a lineage, for that matter). We can't tell the future. We have no clue what will happen next. So we need to be very careful, because our very existence is a fluke and who knows how long we are around for. The planet will be around without us but we can't survive without the biosphere.

I hate the idea of a science 'debate'. Science doesn't work in debate form. You don't get to decide at the end which side is more interesting and vote for which hypothesis would be the most fun to have a beer with.

This isn't a debate about which science is better.  It's about what role the government should play in regards to certain scientific topics: funding for technology, science education, global warming, renewable energy, readiness for a pandemic, stem cell research, space exploration, etc.  It's not like anyone expects McCain and Obama to slug it out over string theory.

Oh, alright, that makes so much more sense.

I hate the idea of a science 'debate'. Science doesn't work in debate form. You don't get to decide at the end which side is more interesting and vote for which hypothesis would be the most fun to have a beer with.

i am not a scientist so the articles veracity? you decide.
the claims they make, no flooding, northwest passage opening, access to oil and gas reserves and fishing grounds, polarbears will be fine more bio mass in oceans etc don't sound bad for human survival i see no link to humans being forced to a feudal survival society. i also don't see any statements about the speed of change being unnaturally fast so maybe your bugs will be OK too...

Warming of ocean temperatures is going to change the climate regardless of the change in shore ice. Ocean currents are driven by temperature change. Ocean temperature is what drives weather, and also climate on the continents. I'm not sure about the information on the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. I do know that other smaller glaciers such as the ones in iceland and the US are shrinking. It is true that water levels will not change due to melting of ocean ice because ice is less dense than the liquid, thus taking up less overal space. Its the glacial caps you have to worry about for that. I do not agree that humans are having no effect on climate change, and I do not agree that the melting of the arctic ice will not have an effect on climate. Any change on the order of thousands of years and not millions is going to cause some level of extinctions. We have proof of effects by climate change. Some examples:

The Joshua Tree, once thriving in Joshua Tree National Park, is expected to be extinct within the part in the next 20-50 years due to climate change.

The Bristlecone pines of the Green mountains, the oldest organisms on earth, are dying fast due to climatic change. The worlds oldest tree, once doing well 10 years ago, is nearly dead, along with most other trees in the area. This tree is over 2000 years old, and just a branch is left alive now.

Pikas, an extraordinary rodent with a language of over 200 'words', once thriving in the great basin at higher altitudes, are dwindling in numbers because they can't handle the rising temperatures, and this is, as the others, a recent developement. Indeed, look at sky islands, isolated pockets, boreal relics communities and species, all dwindling because they are caught on these islands and there is no place to go, no way out, no way to traverse the land around. They are stuck, and they will go extinct if things continue this way.

http://www.dailytech.com/A+Melting+Arctic+Happy+News+for+Mankind/article12882.htm
arctic melting may be good news

Recent short-term gains in Arctic ice coverage indicate nothing about the eventual state of the Arctic. Answers to the long-term status of the region lie in the realm of a scientific branch known as paleoclimatology. What does it tell us?

The Earth is currently in the geologic epoch known as the Holocene. This began nearly 12,000 years ago when the last ice age (more precisely, the Weichsal glacial) ended. Temperatures warmed, glaciers began to retreat, and the Arctic began to melt. This began what is called an interglacial: a warmer period between glaciation.

We tend to think of the poles as immutable, but geologically speaking, permanent polar ice is a rare phenomenon, comprising less than 10% of history. Icecaps form briefly between interglacials, only to melt as the next one begins -- this time around will be no different.

Good news for who? For humans? We're too stuck in this want for a static environment. Human civilization won't be able to cope all that well with any sort of global climate change. For other life forms? Yes and no. Some organisms will benefit, some wont, just like what happens when any environmental change occurs. If there is a large scale extinction event, it will take no more than 20 million years years before the diversity of life on this planet is as large, or larger, than it is now. The question is, will humans survive favorably? We are emergent enough in our consciousness to be affected by greater events than just growth, predatorial evasion, foraging, and reproduction. Do we want to live in a medieval world again, or one with human civilization torn apart on a wide scale?

Me, I like my bugs. Some of my bugs are remnants of the last ice age. I like them a lot, and would like to keep them around if possible. If not possible, I want to at least keep around the ones that can make it, cause I like bugs. I'm not so into most people, but thats my reason. Climate change is going to happen. Hopefully it won't happen so fast that my bugs won't make it.

 

Every magician has a stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling!  Some hypothesize that it is, in fact, one stuffed alligator being hung from multiple ceilings.

I'm not a magician. I don't do party tricks. I'm a bio-mage. We don't hold with those silly stereotypes.

Not even hats and wands?

Wands are for SPAGS.

Every magician has a stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling!  Some hypothesize that it is, in fact, one stuffed alligator being hung from multiple ceilings.

I'm not a magician. I don't do party tricks. I'm a bio-mage. We don't hold with those silly stereotypes.