QUANTITY AND QUALITY

We often make a distinction between quantity and quality. In chemistry it is sometimes sufficient to know that something is present or not. What is in the water? At other times it is important to know the exact amount of something. Exactly how much mercury is in the water? However, there are times when both are important, and we fool ourselves when we ask the wrong questions.

For example, we often ask ourselves, “should I do something, or not”. This would seem like a qualitative question like, “is something there or not?” But the truth is that we are going to do “some thing”. Maybe we will only sit and stare in indecision, but that is doing something. We are never going to do “or not” (unless we die). Likewise, there is always going to be something anywhere we look. We can’t look carefully at water and not find something there, even if it is only water.

Deciding to do something still doesn’t tell us how much of it to do. One can decide to go to a movie, but that doesn’t mean they must do nothing else all day. One needs to acquire money, but that doesn’t always mean we should do nothing but acquire money. Could there be a time when one has enough?

So while the concepts of quantity and quality may be useful in certain narrow areas of study, they are not of much use in day to day living. This is because there is always a quantity involved. The big question is “how much”. And the question of “how much” is a value question which humans are very poor at answering. It is a rare human who voluntarily says, “I have enough”.

HAS THE WORM TURNED?

It may surprise some people to know that earthworms are not native to the North American continent. They were introduced here by early colonists when they brought earthworm cocoons embedded in potted plants they brought with them. Through agriculture, fishing and on their own earthworms have been disseminated across the continent. In some forested area they are spreading at the rate of about seven meters a year.

The glaciated forests of North America existed for millions of years without earthworms as part of their soil makeup. These forests depend on a rich top soil layer of slowly composting leaf litter and a unique microbial population to supply nutrients to the thin mineral soils. As the worms invade an area, they hasten the breakdown of the leaf litter. The trees of the northern forests of the US depend on the leaf litter to help tree seedlings to survive. The thick leaf litter provides protection against temperature extremes, moisture loss and protection from browsing animals. The leaf litter is essential to seedling survival. So as the leaf litter layer is destroyed by earthworms, the reproductive success of the forest is compromised.

Normally, this earthworm activity has been seen as a good thing because it hastens nutrient liberation and spreads nutrients deep into the soil. However, this conclusion was reached based upon the studies of Charles Darwin from the limited sample of the English countryside. There is no indication that he knew earthworms were not universally distributed. What may be good for a damp cold climate may be less beneficial to a different environment. The reported thick top soil of the American mid-west may have existed because there were no earthworms to hasten decomposition. We'll never know since they are now ubiquitous.

There is also evidence that the microbial makeup of the northern soils is changed with invasions of the earthworm. Some of this is undoubtedly due to the changes in leaf litter and soil nutrition. But there is growing suspicion that the collection of earthworm mucus within the soil structure may also account for some of the changes in microbial balance.

Researchers at the Hebei Agricultural University in China examined earthworm mucus for antibacterial activity and found a short peptide (small protein like chemical) that possessed antibacterial properties against several common bacterial strains. What role this chemical plays in the actual protection of the earthworm, the amount produced and how broadly this peptide protects against bacteria is yet to be determined.

Once again we see that "Man doesn't know what he doesn't know."

LIVING TOGETHER

Sometimes the most important truth can be hidden in plain sight. There are over 250,000 flowering plants that have been described. That is probably a modest estimate, but I am not a Botanist and don’t want to over-sell. There are over 750,000 insects described. That number is actually much bigger and is expected to go over a million.

Together this means that two thirds of all life forms are monopolized by these two groups. This is not an accident. These two groups of living things live together in an intimate way. Flowering plants could not exist without the service of insects to aid them in sexual reproduction, which we call pollination. And most insects could not exist without the shelter, surface, and food (nectar, pollen and plant parts) provided by the plants. These two groups are completely symbiotic: dependent on living together.

This concept of living together is a delicate and changing arrangement. There are flowers like Passiflora incarnata, the Maypop, common in the southern United States in areas like Tennessee, that are only pollinated by Xylocopa virginica, a carpenter bee. If the bee is lost, the flower will also become extinct. Or the “bearclaw poppy”, Arctomecon humilis, which is only pollinated by a solitary bee, named Perdita meconis, unknown until just a few years ago. If the flower is lost the bee will go extinct. These last two live near the Virgin River in Southwest Utah, or Northwest Arizona, as you see it.

Sometimes this balance between organisms is upset and we call the result predation, or parasitism, or disease, or extinction, or pollution or some other term. The problem is that it is very difficult to know what will upset the balance between any two or three organisms. How do we know what to avoid, or how to avoid it. It is akin to a complex structure built out of toothpicks. It is hard to predict which tooth pick can be removed and which cannot without causing the collapse of the whole system. Generally humans don’t have a clue what we are doing in this regard.

Mankind has put a lot of energy into killing insects. Many insects compete with us for our food. Some insects transmit diseases. But ironically, mankind relies heavily on the flowering plants for food and fiber. High mountain peaches, cherries, apples, pears, and apricots are just a few of the hundreds of plants we find desirable that rely on insects. So if plants need insects, and insects need plants, and man needs plants, then doesn’t man need insects?