Life at the edge of chaos

One of the lines I picked up from Michael crichton’s Jurassic park. Michael crichton has done a great job in this book although there are a few glitches here and there, like how the mathematician who was supposed to be dead in Jurassic Park came back alive? I liked the book not because of the story involved but for the introduction given in the book, about the life at KT boundary (K-cretaceous, T- Triassic) and arguments he has put forward on extinction. The environment around us is seldom static, plants evolve as fast as animals do, but we don’t realize it. How would you account for the pitcher plant, the venus fly trap and the sun dew plant? Trees too evolve. To ward off insects trees produced sticky sap which entrap the insects. Some plants use ants to ward off other insects, it is a unique symbiotic relationship where the ants protect the plant from foreign attack while getting nourishing sweet nectar from the plant as food.

A very good example is the acacia tree and the giraffe. Long time ago the giraffes used their long necks to pick off leaves off high braches. The trees evolved by developing sharp thorns, the giraffe responded by growing long tongue to evade the thorns. In the next cycle the tree evolved chemical weapons. They started producing toxins which made the leaves inedible and harmful to the giraffe. They even developed a communication system wherein if a giraffe ate leaves from one tree, it would send a chemical signal to all the trees in the surrounding area, at once all the tree would produce high amounts of the toxin. The giraffes countered this move by moving to the next tree upwind.

One more thing which can be seen is that only small organisms evolve by mutations whereas large organisms like primates evolve by making behavioural changes, this behavioural change requires highly developed brains hence primates have large brains but large brains cannot pass through the small birth canal hence primates are born with small brains, with basic reflexes like grasping, sucking etc. The brain doubles in size in the first year. The primates counter the small brain size at birth by living in a group where members of a group raise the young ones and train them to face the real world. Hence primates haven’t developed for many years now. If there is a change in environment they simply move to another one or change their dieting habits. Only if a behavioural change happens suddenly do complex organisms perish. It is postulated that dinosaurs did not die because of a meteorite falling on earth but because their behavior changed after the meteorite fell on the earth 65 million years ago. Let us suppose large herbivores changed their diet to shrubs and grass instead of leaves on top of trees, then the smaller ones would starve to death leading to the death of predators which depended on the small dinosaurs.