4 ms·
It seems logical that a faster Metabolism, quicker to reach reproductive viability organism would frequently outcompete slower variants In the same biome niche.
by K0balt 2y ago
It seems logical that a faster Metabolism, quicker to reach reproductive viability organism would frequently outcompete slower variants In the same biome niche.
- vanderZwan 2y agoNot really, since a faster metabolism requires more energy upkeep, and food scarcity has always been one of the biggest selection criteria in nature.
- K0balt 2y agoFrequently.
- vanderZwan 2y agoEh, no, that qualifier does not fix your argument, because it's not a caveat. Natural selection by definition works on which trait outcompetes the other one most frequently, it's a statistical process. There is a reason life works on a sigmoid growth curve and not an exponential growth one.
- K0balt 2y agoI think maybe people thought I was asserting that it was generally a better solution… I was not. But fast reproduction is hardly a rare trait in nature. An ideal solution would be variable rate metabolism, and we see that in species capable of hibernation. Of course slow metabolisms have advantages in resource constrained environments.
- KineticLensman 2y agoMetabolically slow ambush predators (some snakes, spiders, etc) can also do extremely well in a given niche, and some of these strategies are ancient.
- K0balt 2y agoFrequently.
- Saturdays 2y agothe predominant theory is that the length of an organism's lifespan is inverse to the rate of it's metabolism. Look into Kleiber's law. Also worth reading the book Scale by Geoffrey West.
- K0balt 2y agoThanks for the recommendation.
- jerf 2y agoThere are also advantages to being slower. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%2FK_selection_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%2FK_selection_theory , which I reference historically and encompasses also the discussion on Wikipedia about subsequent refinements of the theory.