5 ms·
> soil is a kind of organism. Surely, like a sourdough starter, a patch of soil is a small _ecosystem_ ? I say "small", but bear in mind how numerous microbe
by SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
> soil is a kind of organism.
Surely, like a sourdough starter, a patch of soil is a small _ecosystem_ ?
I say "small", but bear in mind how numerous microbes are: dry yeast is said to be around 20 billion cells per gram. There are far more individuals in your sourdough starter than there are humans on earth.
- carapace 6y agoI am beginning to suspect that a patch of soil thinks and behaves like a kind of organism, literally.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y agoThis is the "Gaia hypothesis" on a smaller scale.
- carapace 6y agoYes, if you like. Consider the stromatolite, or trichoplax. It seems to me that the boundary, if any, between "ecosystem" and "organism" is conceptual rather than physical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatolite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatolite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichoplax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichoplax