The Good and Bad in Perfect Ecological Harmony

The web of relationships in the natural world is known as the ecosystem, and the study of it ecology. Much as economy has to do with the distribution of goods, services, and property between human beings, ecology—which, like economy, also takes its root from the Greek word for household, and having to do with management of resources— has to do with the distribution of matter, energy, and use of the environment between organisms.

Ecological relationships are founded upon the distribution of the Sun’s energy, which is captured in the photosynthesis of the plants and is shared with the rest of the organisms in the ecosystem by way of the food web or trophic system. Perhaps just as important, however, are the hydrogen and nutrient cycles, including water and the primary nutrients, such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, among many others. These and many more are exchanged in the food web and moved up the trophic pyramid accordingly. Those engaged in ecological relationships together are known as ecological communities.

Trophic relationships are those community dealings relating to the short-term consumption of one organism or energy source by another, such as the Sun’s rays by a primary producer (like plants), the plant’s leaves by a primary consumer (such as an insect), the insect by the secondary consumer (like a bird), and then by a tertiary consumer (like a fox). The trophic relationships, then, include relations of production and consumption, such as those of prey and predator. But they also involve competition for resources, such as between cheetahs or between cheetah and hyena.

While death and suffering are apparent in the ecosystem, evolution also takes place, allowing something novel and improved to take the place of that which has vanquished. In the evolutionary competitions that exist, such as the evolutionary “arms race” between predator and prey, a delicate balance is maintained that allows greater and greater heights to be reached. Predators, for instance, keep grazers and browsers from producing population levels that the land cannot withstand. Without the predators, the grazers and browsers would ultimately suffer worse than they do with the predators being present. Everything, down to the scavengers and decomposers, has a role to play in making the environment more habitable.

Ecological relationships include not only trophic relationships, but also interspecific associations, symbiosis, and intraspecific societies.

When different organisms of a different species inhabit an area in common such that there is some interaction between them, this produces an association, which can be beneficial, neutral, or detrimental, owing to forces such as facilitation, competition, or amensalism, but always entail a greater interdependence. Those associations which become very close, and especially those which involve close contact, become forms of symbiosis. Symbiosis refers to the close relationships that exist between different organisms of different species living in close ecological relationships. Symbionts, those involved in symbiosis, can be involved in relationships of parasitism, where one organism benefits at the expense of another, commensalism, where an organism benefits without expense to another, or mutualism, where each organism benefits from a reciprocal arrangement.

It is difficult to justify the existence of parasites, but they do have an ecological role to play, it seems, particularly...

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You can find more like this on my real blog, Ambiarchy Blog, where I cover topics such as:

• Pantheism: The Belief that Nature is God
• Mutualism: The Belief in Anarchy and Cooperation
• Antapodism: The Belief in Friendship Between Humanity and Nature 

... as well as other topics related to natural philosophy, natural theology, science, and history, including but not limited to:

• Witnessing Shell Theory: An Alternative Natural Cosmology
• Henogenic Volution Out-of-Everywhere: An Alternative Approach to Evolution
• Ambiarchy: An Alternative to Neo-Anarchism