Climate models routinely overlook biodiversityWhat is the definition of biodiversity? When we ask, what is the definition of biodiversity? It depends on what we want to do with it. The term is widely and commonly misused, leading to significant misinterpretation of the importance of how animals function on Earth and why they matter a great deal, to human survival. Here I will try to More and animal impacts. So, when scientists try to explain disparities or conclusions, they often resort to descriptions of physical or chemical processes … whereas its the biological, animal-driven biodiversity processes, that create ecosystem structure.
A recent article published in New Scientist looks at a paper published on Carbon Fertilisation Effects (CFE). That’s to say, as CO2 increases, the additional CO2 creates conditions for more plants to grow, thus reducing some of the effect of global warming. This factor is included in climate models but is mostly based on “the direct acceleration of photosynthesis”, implying that it’s an assumption of chemistry.
The paper found CFE to be more limiting than previously thought, due to limitations in the amount of nutrientsEnergy and nutrients are the same thing. Plants capture energy from the Sun and store it in chemicals, via the process of photosynthesis. The excess greenery and waste that plants create, contain chemicals that animals can eat, in order to build their own bodies and reproduce. When a chemical is used this way, we call it a nutrient. As we More in revegetating ecosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More.
The authors say:
This divergence between observations and process-based models possibly originates from the models’ limitations in adequately representing the emerging decline in key foliar nutrientA substance that contains the raw materials for life. At a chemical level, these are contained inside compounds that are absorbed into the body and essential energy-containing molecules are extracted, so that energy can be transformed into other chemical processes that use the energy for living. More concentrations and the increasing constraints of water limitations on vegetation productivityThe power of an ecosystem to process energy. The most productive ecosystems have reached a steady stable-state with maximum entropy production. That’s to say, the number of species has reached an optimum and the functions they fulfil, have translated free surplus energy into nutrients that is either stored inside plants and animals, or is entrained within the biological cycles that More. Ultimately, these results indicate that terrestrial photosynthesisMeaning how plants extract energy by absorbing water and using radiation from the Sun to combine it with carbon dioxide to create sugars. More may not increase as much as models project, possibly reducing the potential of land-based climate mitigation, further accelerating global warming and exacerbating the efforts required for meeting climate targets.
The conclusion makes sense, except the decline in foliar nutrient, is most likely due to collapse of insect and animal populations (or the simple fact that there is a massively-reduced wildlife trophic structure in newly-formed habitat). The authors have tried to explain their findings using chemistry but it’s most likely the impact of animals (or lack thereof) that describes what they are seeing.
The datasets they used were from the mid-1980s but we know that we’ve lost 60% of animals (in terms of number) since 1970 and insect populations are collapsing worldwide too.
The density of plant nutrient is linked to animal impacts.
There is even a link between maximum entropy productionWhere an ecosystem achieves a steady stable-state with the maximum possible number of species and there is very little free surplus energy because it is all consumed inside biological processes. Entropy dictates that all matter moves towards chaos but animal life enables ecosystems to continually move in the opposite direction. Reaching a state of maximum entropy production is essential for More and the nutrient value of the food we eat. The humble tomato, grown organically, can be 35% smaller by weight at maturity but pack a mean punch when it comes to nutrients. The stress imposed on tomatoes from growing in an organic (wilder) setting, makes Vitamin C at concentrations over 50% higher and phenolic content almost 140% higher which, in association, protects our bodies against the ravages of free oxygen molecules.
It’s the transfer(of nutrients) the thing that sets animals apart from plants, is that they can move. Some of the biggest migrations on Earth every day, are the movement of insects like caterpillars, from the stem of a plant to a leaf and back, before turning into butterflies and transferring the energy elsewhere. Large-scale migration of grazing animals and migratory songbirds moves More, amplificationAmplification (of nutrients and energy). Animals consume plants and other animals and in doing so, reintroduce important energy-containing nutrients back into the environment, at even higher concentrations and in patches. Amplification of energy is driven by migration and happens at every scale, from insects moving daily in and out of your vegetable patch, to African wildebeest herds and the seasonal More and concentration of nutrients by animals, that diversifies vegetation and increases maximum nutrient (and therefore carbon) capture. This is a process of “maximum entropyThe degree of disorder or chaos in a system, most often used to describe thermodynamic energy but also used the behaviour of information. All else being equal, physics determines that all matter and energy moves towards chaos, therefore biological systems are in a continual state of battling against entropic forces in order to remain stable. The most stable ecosystem is More production”. It underpins the development of all ecosystems and can only be driven by animals.
The paper’s observations stand but its explanation of why, is likely to be way off, because it omits consideration of animal impacts.
The consequence among climate scientists and conservationists, is to underplay the critical importance of animals to climate mitigation. The lack of systems-based understanding of ecology and wildlife is glaringly obvious by its omission from almost all climate modellingThe process, either mathematically or in the human brain, of creating an internal version of something that we can refer to, to better understand how it functions and our place within. Scientific modelling is where we take the best knowledge we have and build a version of what will happen, if we assume certain parameters. For example, we might model More.
To make up for the decline in CFE, we need to urgently rebuild wildlife populations.
