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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 07/20/2006 : 17:24:16
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A study in Nature, as reported in LiveScience, highlights the importance of top predators as the regulators of entire biological energy chains. As humans have often decimated top predator species, this study has important implications for our future "stewardship" of nature. In fact, it appears that the top predators themselves are the proper and most effective stewards of nature: quote:
Top Predators Key to Ecosystem Survival, Study Shows
By Bjorn Carey
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 19 July 2006
01:00 pm ET
Top-level predators strike fear in the hearts of the animals they stalk. But when a deer is being mauled by a wolf, at least it can know that it's giving its life for the greater good.
A new study reveals how ecosystems crumble without the presence of top predators be keeping populations of key species from growing too large. It also provides a cautionary lesson to humans, who often remove top predators from the food chain, setting off an eventual collapse.
The study is detailed in the July 20 issue of the journal Nature.
Food chain Whac-a-Mole
The researchers studied eight natural food webs, each with distinct energy channels, or food chains, leading from the bottom of the web to the top.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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