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How exactly would they be "wasted"? Seems to me that they would just end up back in nature and deeding other organisms as part of the food chain.
by andreitp1 7y ago
How exactly would they be "wasted"? Seems to me that they would just end up back in nature and deeding other organisms as part of the food chain.
- kurthr 7y agoExactly, what if the animal just dies without being eaten... are 100% of it's nutrients wasted? Or did it lead a full life and return from which ot came?
- dredmorbius 7y agoThis is where scavengers and decomposers come in. It's relatively rare that living organisms die without being part of some further biological change, though that does happen. Fossil fuels are formed through lack of biological decomposition, as are precursor materials: peat bogs, kerogenated biomass, abiotic methane. Deaths in desert, arctic, or alpine conditions may simply dessicate and degrade rather than being eaten. The entropic channel may pass through biological mechanism, but there's no obligation that it must.
- Diederich 7y ago> How exactly would they be "wasted"? Increased entropy mostly in the form of heat.
- perl4ever 7y agoCompared to not eating it, or compared to the animal never having existed? I can't follow how, either way.
- ahelwer 7y agoSome are, in the form of excrement. Most are not, because they're released as heat with the animal moving around and maintaining homeostasis. It's the same for us except all our excrement ends up in a landfill.
- dredmorbius 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]