Biodiversity and Biogeography
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چکیده
As we have seen, life has been important in shaping its own environment throughout its 3.8 Ga* geologically recorded history. It has influenced earth-surface temperatures (Classes 2, 9, 10) through its involvement in the geochemical cycles that determine the world oceans salt content and the atmospheres composition (Classes 7-10). Overall, lifes effects have tended to compensate for the thermal effects of various changes in the sunlight dose (Classes 2, 6, 9). Life may well have been the key element that, so far at least, has kept the Earth from entering a runaway-greenhouse phase, as Venus and Mars seem to have done (Class 2), and perhaps also in keeping the surface temperatures low enough that the lithosphere could stay geologically alive and actively involved in convective cooling of the planets deep interior, as seems not to have happened on Mars and Venus (Classes 3, 4). But how have plate tectonics, continental drift, and the Earths convective cooling affected lifes evolution? Class 4 asked why there are so many tectonic plates. Now it is time to ask why there so many kinds of organisms, how the changing configuration of continents and oceans has affected biodiversity, and how we humans can plan most wisely to conserve that diversity for coming generations.
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تاریخ انتشار 2002