this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
28 points (85.0% liked)
Asklemmy
43811 readers
1024 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I’d say adaptability would be priority in an environment that is subject to frequent change. Environments that are largely static probably favor efficiency.
Yeah. Countless examples going both directions. I wouldn't call crocodilians super adaptable, but they are so well tuned for their specific environs that they've been largely unchanged for 94 MILLION years.
I would argue that being warm blooded makes an animal more adaptable. Interestingly, it seems cold blooded reptiles evolved into warm blooded archosaurs which eventually led to cold blooded crocodilians. Tellingly, these active warm blooded ancestors are all extinct in favor of the passive, cold blooded, low adaptability ambush predator.
In the opposite direction, the adaptable rat has done much better than the countless specialized species that have disappeared since the industrial revolution and human explosion.
The thing about coastal areas is they’ll always be a part of Earth’s biosphere. Unlike plains or deserts or deciduous forests, which don’t have to exist, and can completely disappear, coastlines and estuaries can only move, never disappear.
This is a cool point. I've never thought about that before. It's a very stable environment allowing for efficiency to be selected for in ways that may decrease adaptability.
A coastline absolutely can vanish(submerged) or be against geography, such as rocky cliffs, that is unsuitable. "Coastlines can't stop existing, only move" is semantic nonesense.
EDIT: for ya downvoters, where's the coastline on an island that vanishes due to rising sea levels? The Marshall Islands have a max elevation of ~7' and are already having issues with rising sea levels. When the sea rises above them, where does their coastal ecosystem go?
If a coastline submerges a new coastline is created further inland. ie, it moved. Or are you proposing a situation where all land is submerged?
You’re right, a beach can be replaced by cliffs that a crocodile wouldn’t be able to make use of. That’s a good point.
Cold blood probably makes a lot of sense for an aquatic ambush predator that needs to lie motionless for most of its life. Keeping that body warm the whole time wastes a lot of energy, especially under water. If you conserve energy, you can go longer without food which is important if you are waiting for food to come to you rather than seeking it out.