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I have a burning need to know stuff and I love asking awkward questions.

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Cartoon Time.

8 comments:

Mudpuddle said...

forethought... what's that?

Stephen said...

You get on land and go kill things there, duh.

In reality, it would perish and then other parts of the pond ecosystem would go nuts for a bit until a new equilibrium was established. Chances are creatures who had a marginal role in the old ecosystem would be the new leading factions. That's the incredible thing about evolution...it's never a static story that can be derailed. Introduce something new and the story changes, but life goes on. Emergent order FTW!

Mudpuddle said...

adaptation to a changing environment, as geologists look at it... punctuated equilibrium in more drastic cases(gould)

CyberKitten said...

@ Mudpuddle: Adaptation to change is pretty awesome. It got us where we are today!

@ Stephen: I think an equally probable outcome is once the pike has eaten all of the little fish it begins to starve. Meanwhile, without the plant eating fish, the pond weed goes crazy and starts mopping up all of the available oxygen. When the pike finally dies it sinks to the bottom of the pool. Having previously eaten all of the smaller scavengers the dead pike is slowly consumed by bacteria which bloom in the sudden abundance of resources. Unfortunately the bloom also uses up the last of the oxygen reserves and everything in the pool dies. Leaving a weed choked pond smelling of rotting vegetation.

VV said...

Exactly!

Stephen said...

Two suppositions. Obviously the only thing to do is to find a pond, let a pike eat everything in it, and see what happens. ;-)

CyberKitten said...

I think Trump is running that test right now..... Except first he's building a wall around the pond.

Stephen said...

Free market, Trump? Hah, not with the tariffs and such. He's more of a protectionist, one who will do more harm than good to the real American economy, as opposed to the financial markets. I sure he thinks he's doing good work, creating space for American industry to "come back", but it really doesn't work like that. I hope the dems put up someone who's not execrable in 2020, but they're not exactly friends of economic sense either.