Balance of nature: importance of ecosystems underground (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, August 28, 2019, 14:19 (1914 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: There is a complex of microbes, fungi and plant roots interacting through nutrients exchanges that is in the infancy of its scientific delineation:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/soils-microbial-market-shows-the-ruthless-side-of-forest...

dhw: Many thanks for this absolutely brilliant article, and also for editing it! In turn, I’d like to cherry pick and comment on a few quotes:
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"Key to this picture is the revelation that the unseen underground world is just as complex, sophisticated and purposeful as the visible aboveground world we inhabit. Microbes are not simple, passive accessories to plants, but dynamic, powerful actors in their own right.
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"... tantalizing research hints at a capability that has been suspected but never proved: that fungi might not be just nutrient traders but also sophisticated information processors.
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"Simard referred to forests as “supercooperators” and made the bold assertion that trees don’t just cooperate but communicate. She described birches and Douglas firs as engaging in a “lively two-way conversation” mediated by their underground collaborators. “I had found solid evidence of this massive belowground communications network,” she said, adding later in the talk, “Through back and forth conversations, they increase the resilience of the whole community.”
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“[…] life forms below the surface control their own fate, just as much as those above. It’s a dynamic marriage of equals."

What shines through all these quotes is the observation that all forms of life have their own means of processing information, communicating, cooperating, taking decisions and generally working out their own ways of survival. This goes back to the theory of the autonomous intelligent cell as the basis of all evolution, adapting to or exploiting whatever conditions it is confronted with. The same principle applies to the tiniest of micro-organisms and to the most complex of cell communities, just as David points out:

DAVID: Huge article barely touched upon. Key point: the entire Earth's life systems consist of these interlocking relationships at macroscopic or microscopic levels. Balances of nature are essential to the maintenance of living organisms. Individual systems may come and go over time as dhw notes, but at any given moment there must be necessary systems operating to support the life forms depending upon them.

dhw: Absolutely right. Every econiche and every relationship speaks of deliberate design by the organisms existing at any particular time. They seem to know what they are doing. And it would, in my view, be perfectly reasonable to claim that their extraordinary intelligence suggests that it too may be the product of design (enter David’s God). But I feel obliged to point out that the vastness of this unseen world and the variety of econiches that come and go are irrelevant to David’s theory that his God designed them all to cover the time he had decided to take before designing the only thing he wanted to design: H. sapiens.

Total distortion as usual in the bolded section. God knew, full well, that all of evolution had to be designed before He got to designing humans and He WANTED to design it all.

Under “clever corvids”

QUOTE: "'Our study shows that crows can be taught to control their vocalizations, just like primates can, and that their vocalizations are not just a reflexive response. This finding not only demonstrates once again the cognitive sophistication of the birds of the crow family. It also advances our understanding of the evolution of vocal control.'"

DAVID: Amazingly clever as usual.

dhw: I think it is highly likely that ALL organisms are able to control their own particular means of communication, but we humans have not yet fully grasped the nature of their “cognitive sophistication”. The wonderful article above shows, however, that we are now on the way. The word “sophisticated” is also used in some of the quotes.

And it all could have been designed into organisms.