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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   5340 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 22, 2023

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A while back on 4chan, I saw an interesting quote from a book that said something along the lines of:

The larger a system is, the less diversity it can support. Something something, the galapagos islands have vastly more biodiversity than north America despite being much smaller

Now, I didn't save the picture, and it was photograph of a page of a book. I tried searching for "larger" "system" "less diversity" "support", but you know how terrible google is about finding anything that isn't an "approved" mainstream news article nowdays. I ended up finding a paper called Why do several small patches hold more species than few large patches? that was tangentially related, but it seems to be more focused on conservation. Any idea what I could search for to find more information about this as a general topic? I feel like this could "The larger a system is, the less diversity it can support" is a very interesting premise that could describe a lot of topics, especially sociological and economic topics.

I think a large area allows for generalist - specialist creatures. That's not a great term, but animals that evolve that can counter common survival strategies.

It's probably more clear if I give some examples.

Giant bugs are common on islands. At least until humans accidentally introduce rats. Then suddenly all the giants bugs are gone.

House cats are amazing at wiping out unique bird species.

Australia is famous for its large number of venomous species. It also doesn't have any mustelidae. Honey badgers would be very successsful.

House cats are amazing at wiping out unique bird species.

House cats are really good at destroying wildlife overall. very efficient killers

Feral house cats, the ones who were born on the streets and raised by nature, are terrific at killing. Those raised in houses by humans are quite inefficient. especially those who know they have a home to return to, and food to eat.

Take care to spay or neuter your captive fluffy descendants of the beasts who hunted your ancestors. Those who can spawn will inevitably screw.

I suspect the disparity between island bird species vs continental bird species capacity to protect are much greater than between-cats attack capacity disparity.

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