[HN Gopher] Sea life bounced back fast after the 'mother of mass...
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Sea life bounced back fast after the 'mother of mass extinctions'
Author : gmays
Score : 126 points
Date : 2023-02-15 14:56 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| lkrubner wrote:
| In his book Metazoa, Peter Godfrey-Smith mentions that life in
| the ocean was more diverse than life on land, until a 130 million
| years ago, when diversity on land became exceptional, mostly
| driven by a feedback loop between insects and plants, as plant
| diversity allowed insect specialization and insect diversity
| allowed plant specialization. (Until finally we arrived at a
| situation where every species of fig tree had a specialized
| species of wasp responsible for pollinating that species of fig
| tree.)
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Metazoa-Animal-Life-Birth-Mind-ebook/...
| mistrial9 wrote:
| also not all water is healthy water
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_waters
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaccumulation
|
| rediscovering ancient sea states, this Blue Planet went through
| extreme anti-fertile stages. "recovery" necessarily includes
| devolving to those states as a possible outcome
| bannedbybros wrote:
| [dead]
| dpflan wrote:
| In 1 million years.
| hw-guy wrote:
| Is that all? That makes me feel a lot better about the next
| climate-related mass extinction.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Right, exactly. One of the challenges with this is the
| soundbite. For those whose agenda is suited, they'll latch on
| to the word 'quickly'. "Hey, no problem, even if everything
| goes to hell, it'll recover just fine. No big deal, carry on as
| usual", entirely ignoring that it's "quickly" on a geologic
| time scale, not a human.
| bell-cot wrote:
| At least with palaeontologists, you can ~always adjust the
| adjectives in one direction.
|
| Vs. with astronomers, physicists, and such...a phrase like
| "extremely bright" could mean "the comet will be visible with
| binoculars, if you know exactly where to look". Or, it could
| mean "if there were any Earth-like planets in that
| galaxy...well, there aren't now".
| wwwpatdelcom wrote:
| Whew...relax guys, with the current ocean acidification going
| on[1], we will only have to wait about a million years for
| recovery, not ten million like you were probably thinking.
|
| [1] https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/ocean-
| co...
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Nice image of a fish fossil from this discovery here:
|
| https://www.sci.news/paleontology/guiyang-biota-11644.html
|
| Also see the related (linked) discussion of the cause of the
| Permian extinction:
|
| > "The team's findings showed that volcanic eruptions in Siberian
| Traps released immense amounts of carbon dioxide into the
| atmosphere. This release lasted several millennia and led to a
| strong greenhouse effect on the late Permian world, causing
| extreme warming and acidification of the ocean."
|
| > "Dramatic changes in chemical weathering on land altered
| productivity and nutrient cycling in the ocean, and ultimately
| led to vast de-oxygenation of the ocean. The resulting multiple
| environmental stressors combined to wipe out a wide variety of
| animal and plant groups."
|
| It's worth noting that current fossil fuel emission rates of CO2
| to the atmosphere are as much as 14X the rates during the Permian
| extinction, although humans have only really been at it for 150
| years or so, compared to thousands of years during the Permian
| era.
| toss1 wrote:
| >> current fossil fuel emission rates of CO2 to the atmosphere
| are as much as 14X the rates during the Permian extinction,
| although humans have only really been at it for 150 years or
| so, compared to thousands of years during the Permian era.
|
| And a rate of 14x times 150 years yields the equivalent of 2100
| years of Siberian Traps pollution.
|
| Current knowledge is that this activity preceded the Permian
| extinction for 250K years [0]. That might seem like "Oh, we're
| only around 1% there".
|
| But, critically, the authors of the paper point out:
|
| "We don't know if a little erupted for 250,000 years, and right
| before the extinction, boom, a vast amount did, or if it was
| more slow and steady, where the atmosphere reaches a tipping
| point, and across that point you have mass extinction, but
| before that you just have critically stressed biospheres,"
|
| We are creating serious danger here with this massive
| uncontrolled experiment on the climate. Once the food web
| breaks, we're fooked, with no way to recover in time.
|
| [0] https://news.mit.edu/2015/siberian-traps-end-permian-
| extinct...
| soperj wrote:
| > And a rate of 14x times 150 years yields
|
| There's a vast difference between what we were releasing 150
| years ago, or even 50 years ago compared to now.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yes, I understand that the rate isn't constant. This is a
| brief post looking at the scale of the issue, not an
| exhaustive dissertation.
|
| The output is also accelerating, despite efforts to contain
| it. The only thing that seemed to cause a dip was the
| beginning of the pandemic.
|
| But by all means, please continue to provide an example of
| the kind of dismissive opposition that is and will be faced
| by people trying to fix the problem, even when the food web
| is already collapsing.
| soperj wrote:
| Wow snark.
|
| > And a rate of 14x times 150 years yields the equivalent
| of 2100 years of Siberian Traps pollution.
|
| From your original comment you display no understanding
| that the rate isn't constant.
| toss1 wrote:
| Again: absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence;
| brief posts tend to omit many obvious factors.
|
| Perhaps instead of lamely defending your original post,
| you could instead add to the discussion by digging up the
| actual historical rate of increase and using it to rework
| the calculation for a more detailed result, and then
| project the current rate of increase into the future for
| the next few centuries and see how much of a dent that
| makes. Come to think of it, why didn't you do that in the
| first place?
|
| But, thanks for again demonstrating Vladmir Lenin's
| thesis on how effective Useful Idiots can be in derailing
| progress. Keep right on helping ensure that no one can
| make a point that disturbs the status quo, and make sure
| that nothing changes...
|
| sheesh
| soperj wrote:
| > But, thanks for again demonstrating Vladmir Lenin's
| thesis on how effective Useful Idiots can be in derailing
| progress.
|
| That's a lot of words for name calling.
|
| > Perhaps instead of lamely defending your original post
|
| You made a simple error, and yet I'm the one defending?
| You're projecting. Honestly, it's people like you that
| put people off doing things climate change related. Self
| important, with a smart aleck response for everything.
| toss1 wrote:
| Your anti-climate-action attitude needs no encouragement
| from me; you demoed it just fine by showing up doing the
| easiest thing in the world -- only finding fault -- and
| doing it by adding purposeful obtuseness as if you're
| trying to implement the CIA Sabotage Handbook [0]
|
| Your entire point is dithering about values of 0.005 vs
| 0.01 and I was noting that we're somewhere around two
| orders of magnitude within the greatest climate disaster
| and extinction in the planet's history, but sure, let's
| waste our time over that 50% error.
|
| [0] https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-art-of-simple-
| sabotage...
| soperj wrote:
| > Your anti-climate-action attitude needs no
| encouragement from me;
|
| I don't have one. You're encouraging other to though.
| Finding fault is part of Science, it has nothing to do
| with disagreeing with your world view.
| jbottoms wrote:
| Is there a chart or charts for the time vs evolution velocities?
| GalenErso wrote:
| Sea life may bounce back, but gigantic aquatic fauna seems to be
| on a permanent decline. Megalodon, mosasaurus, liopleurodon, and
| dunkleosteus are extinct and... nothing like them is evolving
| again? All the above animals evolved after the Tr-J mass
| extinction event. So why are we not seeing similarly large
| animals evolve today? Blue whales and Carcharodon Carcharias are
| cool, for sure, but they're just not the same.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| I suspect it has to do with a decline in atmospheric pressure.
| The pressure is lower now, and it makes the physics of large
| living creatures more difficult.
| 988747 wrote:
| I wonder if the fact that we have much lower oxygen content now
| than 100-50 millions years ago might be a factor here. Also,
| the fact that despite "climate change" we are living in one of
| the coolest periods in Earth's history:
| https://www.climate.gov/media/11332
| mistrial9 wrote:
| this is "cold comfort" .. plenty of long geological eras were
| highly poisonous or unstable. It is annoying-or-worse to see
| a one-liner that implies that rapid increase in overall
| temperatures is OK or even "normal"
| TSiege wrote:
| The blue whale is the largest known animal to have ever existed
| on this planet not just today. We had plenty of very large
| (larger than extant) land animals until the holocene
| extinctions began. The Paraceratherium (a extinct animal like a
| rhino) was head to toe 24feet! (7.4m). (perhaps higher oxygen
| levels as others might have pointed out played a role too in
| sheer size.)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraceratherium
| DanCarvajal wrote:
| Oceans as an ecosystem are fascinating. This is simplified but on
| land the food chain is usually something like Plant-Herbivore-
| Predator but in the ocean the food chain is much longer, algae-
| Zooplankton--Predator-Predator-Predator-Predator-Predator-
| Predator-Predator. There's so much opportunities in the predator
| niche in the oceans that land animals keep going back to the
| ocean, because the evolutionary challenges were regularly worth
| it. This truly is a blue planet.
| wardedVibe wrote:
| I mean, if you start including insects the tree on land is way
| deeper. There's more size niches in land photosynthesizers for
| whatever reason, so there's more variety in herbivore size too.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| One of the most awesome experiences was being able to see an
| Orca in person closeup. It was truly humbling to realize that
| in all the vastness and diversity of the ocean, this was the
| apex predator!
| DanCarvajal wrote:
| Got to see my first whale earlier this year (Gray Whale) and
| on the way home I kept tying to hype my SO up on the fact
| that it's a privilege to be alive on this planet at the same
| time as the largest animals ever (the whales specifically the
| Blue). Hoping to see some Orcas later this year on a PNW
| trip.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| I did so on a trip to Orcas Island WA this summer! Our boat
| travelled farther north than Victoria BC (no border at sea)
| to find them, then we tailed them back south. The pod
| located some porpoise and hunted them with encirclement and
| charges. The mom was training her baby and they rammed the
| prey so hard it flew at least 20 feet in the air. Probably
| broke all the bones in its body.
| abraae wrote:
| We sometimes have pods of orcas hunting stingrays around
| here. In their urgency to get away, the rays will sometimes
| hurl themselves up out of the water and onto the rocks.
| Apparently (though I've never seen it) the orcas will
| sometimes chase them up onto the rocks.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Another fascinating thing is that, as far as we know, the
| Blue Whale is the largest animal that has ever existed.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| You mean fungi / bacteria > bacteriophage / virus > herbivorous
| insects > predatory insects > plants / fungi > microogranisms
| more generally > plants / fungi > insects > reptile > birds >
| plants > birds > insects > reptile / birds > herbiverous
| mammals > insects <> bird eating spiders > birds > plants >
| predatory mammals > bacteria / fungi <> viruses ...
|
| You're over simplying it because you think the oceans are more
| complicated or something.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I think there's room for Corpse-Scavenger subloops in there.
|
| After the mother of all extinctions, it would be a field epoch
| for the scavengers.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Nothing that was talked about in the parent post is unique to
| marine ecosystems, is it?
|
| The terrestrial food chains information is just incorrect.
| Fungi are absent in that description. Insects are eaten by
| countless prey species, apex predators have multiple trophic
| levels below them. There are countless insect, fungal, and
| animal carrion feeders.
|
| A post that is so factually inaccurate should not be so
| upvoted. We shouldn't meta comment, but the rapid decrease in
| submission and comment quality on Hacker News is really a
| problem.
|
| And the fact that land animals evolve to marine lifestyles is
| just expected, oceans are more than 70% of Earth's surface.
| The lack of marine, pelagic animals is notable in that sense.
| DanCarvajal wrote:
| Well I did say that I was simplifying somethings, which I
| think is useful as this is kind of a classic shorthand way
| of comparing example food chains for the layperson. My goal
| was to not lose the forest for the trees.
|
| Come to think of it, I talk to a lot of five years olds
| which has definitely impacted how I approach topics.
| [deleted]
| canadianfella wrote:
| [dead]
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >but in the ocean the food chain is much longer, algae-
| Zooplankton--Predator-Predator-Predator-Predator-Predator-
| Predator-Predator.
|
| And some of the algae and the predators even gang up on the
| zooplankton: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooxanthellae
| culi wrote:
| Interesting, I wouldn't really think the ocean food chain is
| "more complicated". Soil ecosystems themselves are extremely
| complex and much more tightly integrated with what's happening
| above ground than we often realize for example
|
| But I do agree there's some really interesting key differences.
| For one, speciation on land is often driven by geological
| barriers that split populations apart. But these types of
| barriers are much less common in the ocean where this only
| really happens to organisms that are restricted to shallow
| waters (and even then "island-hopping" happens much more
| commonly)
| gtvwill wrote:
| Temperature and depth are your barriers in the ocean. Water
| can be shallow and swimmable but if it's too cold to live in
| for a species it may well be a brick wall.
| Lammy wrote:
| We should also thank the Moon for its tidal energy :)
|
| "Ages ago, life was born in the primitive sea. Young life forms
| constantly evolved in order to survive. Some prospered -- some
| did not. All sorts of life ebbed and flowed like the tide. In
| the quiet rhythm of the mother sea, life grew, always seeking
| to survive and flourish."
| olivermarks wrote:
| Also the phytoplankton in the oceans that process the air we
| breath.
|
| https://www.nationalgeographic.org/activity/save-the-
| plankto...
| canadianfella wrote:
| There is a lot less life in the oceans than you may imagine.
|
| " there is roughly 80 times more biomass on land than in the
| oceans. "
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6016823/
| swores wrote:
| That same link says that it's plants that make up the
| majority of biomass on land, and that "Bar-On et al. (1)
| estimate that more than 70% of global animal biomass is found
| in the ocean".
| HPsquared wrote:
| I suppose in economic terms there is a lot of "liquidity"
| (pardon the pun). Species can move around very freely and find
| their ideal niche.
| deepsun wrote:
| I can argue the other way.
|
| When I dived in different oceans, I was surprised to see the
| same fish (most popular ones). It's hard to imagine the same
| on land. Finding a niche is much easier on land, especially
| in mountains.
| timst4 wrote:
| Cool. They'll bounce back fast after this mass extinction that's
| happening right now. That is, unless humans succeed in
| terraforming Earth into a Mars clone. Then all life is screwed.
| willio58 wrote:
| To preface what I'm about to say, I'm anti-mass extinction and
| I definitely agree that as a planetary society we need to
| continue pushing to slow down and eventually reverse climate
| change.
|
| But I really think the "all life is screwed" mantra is damaging
| to us, especially our youth. There needs to be a balanced take
| on this, because saying that all life is screwed gives no hope
| or even purpose to the kids growing up now who will
| _inevitably_ need to fix what we 're leaving them. I'm mid-20's
| and I grew up with some level of media telling me that the
| world was ending, but it was pretty muted and didn't make me
| feel like there was no way we could fix things.
|
| I'm not saying people won't die or people won't have to
| massively change how they live to adapt to climate change in
| the future, but we need to stop basically saying that every
| single human dying is an inevitability with climate change.
|
| As a thought experiment: Let's say in ~50 years 10% of humans
| die in a 5 year span due to catastrophic climate change (~800
| million based on current pop.). What is the incentive at that
| point for governments to NOT force radical regulation
| legislation to go through? Money? In the past few years we've
| gotten to the point where renewable energy is simply cheaper
| than the alternative. Now imagine we have better batteries
| years down the line. Exactly who is profiting at that point?
| The oil companies? They can just invest in renewables and save
| the money they'd lose fighting uprisings from the people in
| their countries who have lost, in this thought experiment, 800
| million fellow humans.
|
| All this to say, climate change is a BIG DEAL. But let's stop
| wallowing in that fact, and let's focus all that energy in
| pushing for governments to force companies to do the right
| thing.
| amilios wrote:
| I think the issue is feedback loops. You're right that
| eventually governments will be "forced" to do the "right
| thing", but the problem is that it is likely going to be too
| little too late, and the climate feedback loops already set
| in motion may indeed "finish the job" and make the planet too
| inhospitable for any humans to feasibly live on.
| dogcomplex wrote:
| Agreed. We should also consider the context that - yes - the
| damages of climate change are disproportionately going to
| affect developing nations and increase natural disaster risk
| and food security, but these dangers are coming in against a
| strong trend of those risks going down for many people.
| Things were bad in the past - and they're still bad in many
| places now - but that has been shrinking rapidly. Climate
| change could very-well slow or even reverse this trend for a
| time, but barring a complete destruction of our technological
| progress, people in the future in general will still be far
| better off than now, even with this mess, and even in
| developing countries.
|
| Now, of course, this doesn't mean these benefits will be
| evenly distributed (this is going to even further increase
| wealth inequality and be a deadly disaster for many people),
| and we are pretty terrible at prioritizing e.g. protecting
| natural ecosystem biodiversity. There will certainly be
| irreversible (in human timescale) losses to our ecosystem and
| therefore the knowledge and potential of future civilizations
| from this. And there are even some truly catastrophic death
| spiral scenarios possible. But it's likely that even the
| cynical reality will end up being something of a widespread
| unfairly distributed uptick in disaster risk and continuation
| of the mass extinction we've already started - slowing
| quality of life improvements for much of the world, but not
| stopping them - with an eventual strong recovery in all areas
| if/when we engage our new levels of technological advancement
| and begin re-wilding programs to purposefully regrow thriving
| natural habitats. (This is somewhat inevitable if/when the
| average quality of life of people is high enough they have
| room to care about such things. Industrial processes applied
| to helping nature thrive would do a lot)
|
| This is the "human nature sucks and we're slow to change
| course" cynical view but with a "technology and industry is
| crazy good in the long term at achieving its goals and
| uplifting people" bullish caveat prediction - which I believe
| to be the age-old trend. We clearly need better global-level
| response organization to deter the worst effects of climate
| change and help distribute risk so it's not all falling on
| the poorest people, but industry-wise - if we have to dump a
| trillion into something stupid-inefficient like direct carbon
| capture machines, we will. (My preferred solution is mass-
| farming kelp - far cheaper per CO2 ton and numerous
| additional beneficial products that basically make it pay for
| itself at scale). The world isn't coming to an end. It's
| coming to a recession/depression - which will be felt to
| different degrees very unfairly - and it's spurring new
| responses.
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