Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016)

Re:Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016) by CapitalistCartr on Sunday January 07, 2018 @09:16AM (#16090915)

We have many more points of dependency. So a malfunction in the machinery of life is more likely to be disastrous the further up the pyramid one lives. At the apex of the pyramid, we are dependent on the entire pyramid being structurally sound. And consider: we are already in the midst of the worst die-off of species since the dinosaurs. So the pyramid is already crumbling.

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Re:Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016) by mehrdadn on Sunday January 07, 2018 @04:42PM (#16092914)

> We have many more points of dependency. So a malfunction in the machinery of life is more likely to be disastrous the further up the pyramid one lives.

You're just repeating the claim, and again, I do not follow the logic. Again, my question is: why would it be less disastrous if we were lower in the food chain? It would help to give an example of a species at a lower position in our food web and explain why, if we took its position, we'd be better off.

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Re:Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016) by CapitalistCartr on Sunday January 07, 2018 @08:24PM (#16093976)

I'm not "just repeating the claim". If you're at the bottom of the pyramid, you only need sunlight and water. If half the animals die off, you're fine. The higher up you are, the more species below on which you are dependent. You're only dependent on what's below, not what's above. With us at the top, a 50% die-off would be catastrophic.

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Re:Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016) by mehrdadn on Sunday January 07, 2018 @08:35PM (#16094015)

In that case I believe you're saying something else, not answering the question I had asked. The sentence I replied to was this:

> as apex predators we are extremely dependent on the lower branches of the foodchain working properly

Again, I repeat my question: if we were lower in the food web, wouldn't we still depend on branches of the food web lower than you? That seems to be true regardless of where you are on the food web. In fact, wouldn't we be more susceptible to harm if we had fewer possible sources of food? One would expect that the fewer alternatives we have, the worse off we would be, right?

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