9 ms·

Perhaps a dumb question, but wouldn't we expect the rise in ocean temperatures to be cause nature to be doing this selective breeding right now?

DoreenMichele 2y ago
Nature doesn't do selective breeding. "Survival of the fittest" means "whatever doesn't die, wins." First you need things capable of not dying in x circumstances. After adversity kills everything else, you have the "winners." This will incline species to develop tolerance over time, usually several generations. Human caused climate change is happening on a timescale that isn't very supportive of that process.
- worldsayshi 2y ago
  At least some corals must be able to survive the current transformation? At least some past extinction events must've been very abrupt and things like corals lived through that?
  - DoreenMichele 2y ago
    Supposedly one past extinction event killed off all dinosaurs, leaving rats and other small mammals to take over the world. Dragonflies used to have like two foot or four foot wings spans. Now their relatively small and presumably play a very different role in the ecosystem. Mother Nature isn't some Christian God that loves you and looks out for you. The fact that nature isn't looking out for our welfare is likely why things like Christianity are popular: Because actual reality scares the hell out of people and they need some kind of emotional opiate so they can go "La la la not listening!" and get through the damn day.
- blindriver 2y ago
  Wrong. This is not how evolution works. RIGHT NOW there are coral that are already heat resistant. When the ocean temperature rises, the corals that can’t tolerate it will die off and the ones that can tolerate will survive. Then because of less resources being used by those that died, the coral with heat tolerance will thrive. This is how evolution works.
eleveriven 2y ago
The pace of climate change is far faster than natural evolutionary processes can keep up with.
colechristensen 2y ago
Yes we would, and certainly there already is evolutionary pressure. This is just putting our finger on the scale knowing what's coming. What is "fast enough" is in the eye of the beholder, life doesn't really care about boom and bust cycles or extinctions, but people really don't like change so we can do it faster and do a bit of reef gardening.
hooverd 2y ago
Over a long enough time scale, sure, but sometimes populations just die.
EasyMark 2y ago
There’s a difference between guided selection and natural selection, guided will Greatly increase the odds of survival for the selected selection criteria, and humans have been doing it for thousands of years. While it can lead to monoculture issues itself. Normally global warming and cooling takes thousands of years giving plenty of time to adapt but humans are changing that to decades
StevenWaterman 2y ago
It's rising way too fast https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
ryukafalz 2y ago
Probably not quickly enough. Ecosystems can adapt if given enough time, but the recent rise in ocean temperatures has happened very quickly by evolutionary standards. There was a good episode of PBS Weathered on this recently if you want an idea of how quickly this has happened: https://youtu.be/YEH9nX5sudk?si=iCivRPwK8AI4sjKU https://youtu.be/YEH9nX5sudk?si=iCivRPwK8AI4sjKU
- glenstein 2y ago
  >Probably not quickly enough. Ecosystems can adapt if given enough time, but the recent rise in ocean temperatures has happened very quickly by evolutionary standards. Exactly, which I think is always the key point at issue that needs to be raised any time someone says "well earth has been this hot before." Never at this velocity, at least not without extinction events.
  - cmpb 2y ago
    Yes, and in fact the extinction event associated with this high-velocity change is termed the "Holocene Extinction" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
- verisimi 2y ago
  But, most historical changes are quite dramatic and quick. And evolution is meant to happen quickly too, no?
- eleveriven 2y ago
  Thanks for sharing
- delecti 2y ago
  I kinda agree with the GP that this seems weird. Yes, ocean temps are rising very quickly, but this experiment only took 5 years, and was presumably a only a tiny fraction of how many wild coral there are. Ocean warming has taken place over several decades, and with millions of times as large of a natural population. It just seems weird that, if this kinda of adaptation is possible (and they showed it is), it wouldn't be happening in the wild. And that does seem to be true, it just seems weird.
adamc 2y ago
Are you willing to wait a few thousand years for a new coral to appear and spread? Maybe tens of thousands of years? Evolution does tend to fill open niches, but not all that instantly.
- theultdev 2y ago
  Yes I am. That's how it happens and how it should happen. Coral systems live, spread, and die. That's what they do. These processes happen over thousands of years.
  - kibwen 2y ago
    Unfortunately, there is no law of the universe that says that change will only occur at a survivable rate. Thousands of species are already going extinct every year, and we're still burning just as many fossil fuels as what got us into this mess. We don't have thousands of years to wait for animals to adapt, we have mere decades.
    - theultdev 2y ago
      Correct, there's no law of the universe that says change will occur a survivable rate. Species have been going extinct long before humans. We should help those species who environments we damage and we should mitigate or nullify the damage in the first place, but we should not play God.
      - matrix2003 2y ago
        We are playing God now by artificially and dramatically altering Earth’s set point.
        theultdev 2y ago
        How much are we altering it over coming out of the last ice age and the natural effects of volcanos and vents? That is still unknown and constantly shifting in predictions. Yes we should minimize our effects on the environment as much as possible, and we are doing a lot better in that goal, but we still need to live. I wouldn't say living our lives is playing God.

DoreenMichele 2y ago

Nature doesn't do selective breeding. "Survival of the fittest" means "whatever doesn't die, wins." First you need things capable of not dying in x circumstances. After adversity kills everything else, you have the "winners." This will incline species to develop tolerance over time, usually several generations. Human caused climate change is happening on a timescale that isn't very supportive of that process.

worldsayshi 2y ago
At least some corals must be able to survive the current transformation? At least some past extinction events must've been very abrupt and things like corals lived through that?
- DoreenMichele 2y ago
  Supposedly one past extinction event killed off all dinosaurs, leaving rats and other small mammals to take over the world. Dragonflies used to have like two foot or four foot wings spans. Now their relatively small and presumably play a very different role in the ecosystem. Mother Nature isn't some Christian God that loves you and looks out for you. The fact that nature isn't looking out for our welfare is likely why things like Christianity are popular: Because actual reality scares the hell out of people and they need some kind of emotional opiate so they can go "La la la not listening!" and get through the damn day.
blindriver 2y ago
Wrong. This is not how evolution works. RIGHT NOW there are coral that are already heat resistant. When the ocean temperature rises, the corals that can’t tolerate it will die off and the ones that can tolerate will survive. Then because of less resources being used by those that died, the coral with heat tolerance will thrive. This is how evolution works.

eleveriven 2y ago

The pace of climate change is far faster than natural evolutionary processes can keep up with.

colechristensen 2y ago

Yes we would, and certainly there already is evolutionary pressure. This is just putting our finger on the scale knowing what's coming. What is "fast enough" is in the eye of the beholder, life doesn't really care about boom and bust cycles or extinctions, but people really don't like change so we can do it faster and do a bit of reef gardening.

hooverd 2y ago

Over a long enough time scale, sure, but sometimes populations just die.

EasyMark 2y ago

There’s a difference between guided selection and natural selection, guided will Greatly increase the odds of survival for the selected selection criteria, and humans have been doing it for thousands of years. While it can lead to monoculture issues itself. Normally global warming and cooling takes thousands of years giving plenty of time to adapt but humans are changing that to decades

StevenWaterman 2y ago

It's rising way too fast https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/

ryukafalz 2y ago

Probably not quickly enough. Ecosystems can adapt if given enough time, but the recent rise in ocean temperatures has happened very quickly by evolutionary standards. There was a good episode of PBS Weathered on this recently if you want an idea of how quickly this has happened: https://youtu.be/YEH9nX5sudk?si=iCivRPwK8AI4sjKU https://youtu.be/YEH9nX5sudk?si=iCivRPwK8AI4sjKU

glenstein 2y ago
>Probably not quickly enough. Ecosystems can adapt if given enough time, but the recent rise in ocean temperatures has happened very quickly by evolutionary standards. Exactly, which I think is always the key point at issue that needs to be raised any time someone says "well earth has been this hot before." Never at this velocity, at least not without extinction events.
- cmpb 2y ago
  Yes, and in fact the extinction event associated with this high-velocity change is termed the "Holocene Extinction" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
verisimi 2y ago
But, most historical changes are quite dramatic and quick. And evolution is meant to happen quickly too, no?
eleveriven 2y ago
Thanks for sharing
delecti 2y ago
I kinda agree with the GP that this seems weird. Yes, ocean temps are rising very quickly, but this experiment only took 5 years, and was presumably a only a tiny fraction of how many wild coral there are. Ocean warming has taken place over several decades, and with millions of times as large of a natural population. It just seems weird that, if this kinda of adaptation is possible (and they showed it is), it wouldn't be happening in the wild. And that does seem to be true, it just seems weird.

adamc 2y ago

Are you willing to wait a few thousand years for a new coral to appear and spread? Maybe tens of thousands of years? Evolution does tend to fill open niches, but not all that instantly.

theultdev 2y ago
Yes I am. That's how it happens and how it should happen. Coral systems live, spread, and die. That's what they do. These processes happen over thousands of years.
- kibwen 2y ago
  Unfortunately, there is no law of the universe that says that change will only occur at a survivable rate. Thousands of species are already going extinct every year, and we're still burning just as many fossil fuels as what got us into this mess. We don't have thousands of years to wait for animals to adapt, we have mere decades.
  - theultdev 2y ago
    Correct, there's no law of the universe that says change will occur a survivable rate. Species have been going extinct long before humans. We should help those species who environments we damage and we should mitigate or nullify the damage in the first place, but we should not play God.
    - matrix2003 2y ago
      We are playing God now by artificially and dramatically altering Earth’s set point.
      - theultdev 2y ago
        How much are we altering it over coming out of the last ice age and the natural effects of volcanos and vents? That is still unknown and constantly shifting in predictions. Yes we should minimize our effects on the environment as much as possible, and we are doing a lot better in that goal, but we still need to live. I wouldn't say living our lives is playing God.