The Perihelion Effect

The Balance of Nature

The Balance of Nature

Each kind of life is suited to the physical conditions of its habitat–the type of soil, the amount of moisture and light, the quality of air, the annual variations in temperature. Each survives because it can hold its own with its neighbors. However, the continued existence of the whole group, or life community, involves a shifting balance among its members, a “dynamic equilibrium.” Natural balances are disrupted when crops are planted, since ordinarily the crops are not native to the areas in which they are grown. Such disturbances of natural balances make it necessary for man to impose artificial balances that will maintain or increase crop production. For the effective manipulation of these new equilibriums, information on nature’s checks and balances is absolutely essential, and often only a specialist is able to provide it. For example, if a farmer were told that he could increase the red clover in his pasture with the help of domestic cats, he might ridicule the suggestion. Yet the relationship between cats and red clover has been clearly established. Cats kill field mice, thus preventing them from destroying the nests and larvae of bumblebees. As a result, more bumblebees are available to pollinate clover blossoms–a task for which they are especially adapted. The more thoroughly the blossoms are pollinated, the more seed will be produced and the richer the clover crop will be. This cat-mouse-bee-clover relationship is typical of the cause-and-effect chains that ecologists study.

Perihelion
Joseph Schuster

The Power of Perihelion

We are all familiar with the idea of holiday stress. That feeling that time is going by faster and faster from Autumn until New Years.

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