While there might be “survival of the fittest” within a given species, each species depends on the services provided by other species to ensure survival. It is a type of cooperation based on mutual survival and is often what a “balanced ecosystem” refers to.
Soil, bacteria, plants; the Nitrogen Cycle
The relationship between soil, plants, bacteria and other life is also referred to as the nitrogen cycle:
As an example, consider all the species of animals and organisms involved in a simple field used in agriculture. As summarized from Vandana Shiva, Stolen Harvest (South End Press, 2000), pp 61–62:
Crop byproducts feed cattle
Cattle waste feeds the soil that nourish the crops
Crops, as well as yielding grain also yield straw
Straw provides organic matter and fodder
Crops are therefore food sources for humans and animals
Soil organisms also benefit from crops
Bacteria feed on the cellulose fibers of straw that farmers return to the soil
Amoebas feed on bacteria making lignite fibers available for uptake by plants
Algae provide organic matter and serve as natural nitrogen fixers
Rodents that bore under the fields aerate the soil and improve its water-holding capacity
Spiders, centipedes and insects grind organic matter from the surface soil and leave behind enriched droppings.
Earthworms contribute to soil fertility
They provide aerage, drainage and maintain soil structure.
According to Charles Darwin, “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of creatures.”
The earthworm is like a natural tractor, fertilizer factory and dam, combined!
Industrial-farming techniques would deprive these diverse species of food sources and instead assault them with chemicals, destroying the rich biodiversity in the soil and with it the basis for the renewal of the soil fertility.
Shiva, a prominent Indian scientist and activist goes on to detail the costs associated with destroying this natural diversity and traditional farming techniques which recognize this, and replacing this with industrial processes which go against the nature of diversity sustainability.
Bees: crucial agricultural workers
Bees are crucial for agriculture
Bees provide enormous benefits for humankind as another example.
As reported by CNN (May 5, 2000), “One third of all our food—fruits and vegetables—would not exist without pollinators visiting flowers. But honeybees, the primary species that fertilizes food-producing plants, have suffered dramatic declines in recent years, mostly from afflictions introduced by humans.”
As German bee expert Professor Joergen Tautz from Wurzburg University adds:
Bees are vital to bio diversity. There are 130,000 plants for example for which bees are essential to pollination, from melons to pumpkins, raspberries and all kind of fruit trees — as well as animal fodder — like clover.
Bees are more important than poultry in terms of human nutrition.
— Joergen Tautz interviewed by Michael Leidig, Honey bees in US facing extinction, The Telegraph, March 14, 2007
Researchers are finding reasons for the massive decline hard to pinpoint, but suspect a combination of various diseases, environmental pollution, environmental degradation (leading to less diversity for bees to feed from, for example) and farming practices (such as pesticides, large monoculture cropping, etc).
The link and dependency between plants, bees, and human agriculture is so crucial, the two scientists writing up years of research into the problem summarized with this warning:
Humankind needs to act quickly to ensure that the ancient pact between flowers and pollinators stays intact, to safeguard our food supply and to protect our environment for generations to come. These efforts will ensure that bees continue to provide pollination and that our diets remain rich in the fruits and vegetables we now take for granted.
— Diana Cox-Foster and Dennis van Engelsdorp, Solving the Mystery of the Vanishing Bees, Scientific American, April 2009
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