Chapter 8 : The Forest and the Trees (Angel Jorge)

In Chapter 8 of Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction, where we follow Kolbert to Peru where she meets with a scientist named Miles Silman. Silman is a forest ecologist and studies the tropical ecosystems of South America. After studying the impact of global warming on the oceans, Kolbert turns to the rainforests of South America. Her conclusions about rainforests are similar to the conclusions she's showed readers in early chapters; increasing temperatures are threatening biodiversity. This further proves that we are experiencing the Sixth Extinction. The purpose of Kolbert’s tour of the Americas is to convey the relationship between biodiversity and climate. Kolbert describes many theories as to why tropical climates are so conducive to biodiversity. Some of these theories suggest that there is an inherently positive relationship between stable climate and biodiversity. Other theories imply that no such relationship exists. Whatever the precise reason, the biodiversity of rainforests suggests that an ecosystem is a complex structure in which the slightest changes, would interfere with the overall structure of life. Silman’s research into rainforests suggests that, if given the option, life forms will try to hold onto the ecosystem with which they’re most familiar, even if doing so requires them to migrate somewhere else. Kolbert explains that there is nothing unusual about climate change, the world’s average temperature has changed many times in the past. However, the speed at which the average temperature is rising is unprecedented in planetary history. It’s a mark of the unprecedented nature of the Sixth Extinction that some of the same species that survived the last Ice Age will be unable to survive the next wave of mass extinction. "As Darwin argued, the environment is constantly changing—therefore, traits that were evolutionarily advantageous at one point in time won’t necessarily remain advantageous in the future," (Page 163). This quote explains that even though animals have given them the ability to adapt to their environment, their advantages in one environment can become liabilities in another or even the same but changed the environment. This relates to the theme that states that a suitable combination of conservation and development is required. This may originally be pointed at humans but relates to animals as well.

Alzatea Verticillata