The unprecedented die-off represents roughly 90 percent of the eastern Bering Sea population
Peter Watts (SciFi author) has a phrase: ‘Signposts en route to oblivion’
Hey look, this is one such signpost
Majority of humanity sitting in the passenger seat staring at their phones: … Huh, wah? … Oh, ok … goes back to looking at phone
More like majority of humanity is like “oh shit, we should stop there’s no road ahead!” And the driver is just like “nah”
I wish, but most humans are stuck on the “there was a road untill here, we will find a new one. No need to slow down for that. There always has been a road.” sentiment.
Toss it on the pile of horrible signs of things to come.
We can use them to warm us and cook each other for food as the last humans die out, neato.
I am curious how long it will take for them to recover. 90% is a huge population decline.
There are many factors that play into that.
First off each female can produce 100,000 eggs per year. So even thos a 90% decline in numbers sounds horrendous, the population numbers can be replaced quickly.
It takes 5-8 years for the crabs to reach full maturity and start reproducing. Harvest size for the males is 7-9 years.
So on first look you think around 8 years for the population to recover.
However in nature something tends to fill the vacuum left by the decrease of a population. Other species who compete with the crabs for food increase in numbers.
Then there is the die off of predators that relied on the crab as a food source. This might allow the crab population to increase faster than normal.
There is also the increase of predators that feed on the species replacing the crab. Supressing the competition to the crabs.
Each of these species has their own lifecycles and timing.
So the bottom line, it could take 6 years or 600 years. We don’t know.
They probably lay 100.000 eggs because only 100 make it into adulthood and the others don’t hatch, get eaten, sick or starve before…
In a stable population, 2 would make it to adulthood every generation. If an adult female produces eggs for 10 years, that’s 1:500K make it to adulthood. The ocean has a lot of hungry mouths.
Well that’s quicker than I was anticipating.
They also might just go extinct. We literally don’t know.
Never; they’ll go extinct with all (including us the people).
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i ate those food
Maybe Charles Darwin was wrong. Perhaps it’s not about being ‘fit’
To be clear, being fit in this case refers to a species being best suited for their specific environment. So a species beginning to die off because the environment they adapted to over a very long time was suddenly and drastically changed makes perfect sense.
What exactly aren’t you getting here?
Tell me you have no understanding of the theory of evolution without telling me you have no understanding of the theory of evolution…
perhaps it’s about having your habitat destroyed by climate change
Why can’t both be true?
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are you serious?
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Absolutely.
Survival of the fittest means the ones most suited for their environment survive enough to pass on their genes. When the environment changes (a new predator moves in, humans tear down your habitat to build condos, the ocean heats up so you don’t have enough food for everyone, etc) only the members of your species that can handle the new condition will survive to pass down their genes.
Maybe as oceans warm, the remaining crabs will evolve to survive their changing environment better. Or maybe they will go extinct because they can no longer compete with species that are better suited for the warmer oceans. Either way survival of the fittest still applies 100% whether the cause is climate change or some other evolutionary pressure.
Does that clear up why it makes no sense to say that this somehow proves Darwin wrong?
nah, it’s too simple. the world isn’t an efficient market, winners and losers are chosen. there isn’t a competition of genetics.
I doubt Charles Darwin would say that Jews weren’t fit to live during the Holocaust, that Muslims are not fit to live in Burma, etc.
Either he’s right or he’s wrong and I don’t think he’s got a complete picture.
This is about species as a whole and their physical characteristics. All humans are the same species and religion is a social construct, so that does not apply. Eugenics =/= Darwinism and it is intellectually dishonest to equate the two.
Also, there is nothing about winners and losers in Darwinism. It is simply an observation about the natural world. The world is always changing and is never static. Those who can handle the change will make babies and pass on whatever quality they have that makes them suited for their current environment. In the future, that quality may or may not be selected for. Or maybe you have a quality that is not beneficial for your environment, but is not harmful for your survival either, thus it may continue to be passed down (e.g. my shitty eyesight that was passed down, but with correction doesn’t impact my survival).
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this is what i was originally getting at, now I’m critiquing Darwin because that’s what science is all about
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