Biotic Regulation: Main Page (original) (raw)
Scientific concept of the Biotic Regulation of the Environment can be formulatedwith the following major propositions:
| No Biota, No Environment Natural ecological communities that are undisturbed by humans (natural biota) create and control their environment. Natural biota maintains the environment in a stable state optimal for life and compensates for all deviations from that optimum up to the threshold of self-destruction. |
Evolution for Regulation Biotic regulation is performed by functioning of all species in the natural ecological community. Stabilising natural selection protects the genetic information, on which such functioning is based, from being lost. Evolution proceeds in the direction of enhancing the regulatory potential of the ecological community. |
| Biota as Computer Information fluxes that are processed by the natural biota while performing environmental control exceed the information fluxes that modern civilisation would ever be able to process by twenty orders of magnitude. The biotic mechanism of environmental stabilisation is unique and cannot be replaced by a technological one. |
Disturbed Biota = Antibiota Anthropogenic transformation of natural ecosystems completely destroys the regulatory potential of the ecological communities on a local scale and continually weakens the global power of biotic regulation. Anthropogenically disturbed and artificially created biological systems are not only merely deprived of regulatory abilities but themselves act as powerful destabilisers of the environment. |
| Biota and Temperature Environmental parameters that are favourable for life on Earth are physically unstable. The liquid state of terrestrial hydrosphere, a major prerequisite for functioning of the contemporary living systems, is unstable with respect to spontaneous transition to either complete glaciation of the planetary surface or complete evaporation of the oceans. Without the stabilising biotic impact the environment and climate of Earth would rapidly degrade to a state prohibiting human existence. |
Biota and Water Humans live on land. Fresh water, a life necessity, is continuously removed from land by river runoff. Natural forests draw atmospheric moisture from the ocean to any distance inland (biotic pump) and, in so doing, compensate for the gravitational runoff of fresh water, generate rainfall and maintain optimal soil moisture content. Deprived of forests, land turns to desert that is eternally locked for oceanic moisture. Forests make rivers. |
For environment and climate to remain suitable for human life, it is necessary
to restore natural forests on the major part of land area.
