Heterotrophs and autotrophs are symbiotes
I can clearly remember from middle school physical science (and high school biology) the definition for what a hetrotrophic (animal essentially) and an autotrophic (plant) life form is. I won't get this perfect, but it went something like:
Autrotrophs make their own energy.
Hetrotrophs don't make their own energy and must get it from other sources.
Stemming from this definition, a profound thought occurred to me lately. So I thought I should leave a short blog entry on it.
To begin with, the above definition has holes. Not in an academic biology sense, but a glaring logical flaw. That flaw is; why? Why did the Earth evolve to have half of the organisms harness energy wile the other half merely spends the energy? An instructive extension of that thought would be; why wouldn't the energy making organisms just spend their own energy?
In 7th grade or so, it seemed that my teacher was telling me that we, as animals, have just been leaching off plant life for our livelihood for the past 500 million years. But looking at this with a more adult outlook, it's already obvious that such an agreement is patently unstable. The reason is easy to understand. Imagine that a plant species evolves that doesn't dump huge amounts of energy back into the atmosphere and instead used that energy to enhance its own chances of survival. That species would be very successful and its decedents would soon crowd out all other plant life on Earth (standard evolution thinking). But this doesn't happen for some reason. The reason is that all plant life explicitly gains something from the existence of animals.
The description of what plants gain from us is queer. I won't blame you if you don't believe it. I didn't entirely swallow it at first. Well, the number one thing that plants gain is... Carbon. We, as people, need oxygen for energy, and plants need Carbon to build more plant mass. Plants take in CO2 from the atmosphere, and in turn, do not breathe out any Carbon. Mass is not conserved. We do not conserve mass either, unless we are eating or drinking we are leaking mass into the air.
One of the most insightful experiments I can remember doing is growing a spider plant in a bottle of water. Why? Because new matter is apparently created out of nowhere. You start with: water, air, and a small plant. You end with: less water, air (for more or less), and a large plant. Where did the large plant come from? Did it get it's building blocks from the water? No. Water does not have enough materials. You can't build a plant from Hydrogen and Oxygen, and the minerals are (I assure you) completely insufficient to build a plant of the size observed. In my experience people often give 'the minerals in the water' as an answer. Don't listen to them, that's wrong! The large plant, in fact, got it's mass from the air.
This is actually an experiment that we have all observed over and over again. Ever notice that your houseplants seem to grow to a size larger than the dirt mass that you put in it? They do. It uses the junk that you breathe out of your mouth to make itself.
Why is this important?
Well, one reason is that plants can't move. It is an energetically loosing process to capture Carbon from the atmosphere. Thus it is a price the plant pays for being, well.... stationary. Why are we so much better at gathering organic substrates? Well, that's pretty much our job - to go scavenge for stuff. Needless to say, hetrotrophs come in all shapes and sizes, not all of which have the freedom of motion, but suffice it to say that placement is important. You can't be hetrotrophic and not have access to food. Plants, on the other hand, commonly thrive in environments where there is little matter that can be thought to constitute 'food'. Their right to live in these such environments is granted by the toil of hetrotrophs.
Thus, we (as hetrotrophs) don't 'leach' off of plants in any way, and I would revise the previous definitions for the sake of a middle or high school class. I would do this to avoid confusing students about the universal questions that they may not yet understand are bothering them (I was sure confused). But this task is not easy, I was perplexed as to how to revise this definition. I will allow myself more discussion after a first attempt:
Autrotrophs make their own energy, but rely on other life for distributing of matter.
Hetrotrophs gather their own matter, but rely on other life for enegy.
The part I am troubled by lies in the phrases "distributing of matter" and "gather matter" seen here. Surely there is some more eloquent phrase to use for this, right? School children will sure have a hard time with this one. Heck, physicists will have a hard time with this one. I've described what plants get from us, but what is it that plants get from us?? We should put it into some hard physical quantity, right? Entropy? Oh heck no! It's the opposite way around, hetrotrophs create more entropy by scattering Carbon into the atmosphere. Mobility? Eh... not quite so, though it does play a role in this. Perhaps, organization? My brain contorts around applicability of this word, as it is both the answer and the anti-answer. Hetrotrophs travel to the furthest corners of forests and livable spaces and find organic substrates to burn. The matter they burn can then be used by plants to create more plant matter.
Imagine this applied to industrial processes. Think about a world where burning fuels is actually doing a favor to someone by redistributing our Earth's raw materials. New skyscrapers are built without a single truck moving material, but instead Carbon sequesters located at the pinnacle of the structure churns out Carbon nanotubes. When the building has reached the end of its life, you don't have to pay anyone to take it away, but are instead are paid by someone to let them take it away and burn it for energy. The energy is used and the Carbon atoms once again float to the top of our highest buildings.
This elegant and strange process, my friends, isn't just the miracle of life. This is the miracle of gas. This is the miracle of liquids. The ability for things to disperse in certain conditions, while at the same time not disperse under other conditions, is the bane of our existence.
While we, as humans, use fluid processes to efficiently accomplish many isolated processes, a world-wide balance that contributes to our productivity is something that human society is far far away from. But someday we will live in such a balance. For now, I would encourage the reader to prep themselves for the kind of mentality that such a society will require. Think long and hard about what plants gain from our chemistry.
Autrotrophs make their own energy.
Hetrotrophs don't make their own energy and must get it from other sources.
Stemming from this definition, a profound thought occurred to me lately. So I thought I should leave a short blog entry on it.
To begin with, the above definition has holes. Not in an academic biology sense, but a glaring logical flaw. That flaw is; why? Why did the Earth evolve to have half of the organisms harness energy wile the other half merely spends the energy? An instructive extension of that thought would be; why wouldn't the energy making organisms just spend their own energy?
In 7th grade or so, it seemed that my teacher was telling me that we, as animals, have just been leaching off plant life for our livelihood for the past 500 million years. But looking at this with a more adult outlook, it's already obvious that such an agreement is patently unstable. The reason is easy to understand. Imagine that a plant species evolves that doesn't dump huge amounts of energy back into the atmosphere and instead used that energy to enhance its own chances of survival. That species would be very successful and its decedents would soon crowd out all other plant life on Earth (standard evolution thinking). But this doesn't happen for some reason. The reason is that all plant life explicitly gains something from the existence of animals.
The description of what plants gain from us is queer. I won't blame you if you don't believe it. I didn't entirely swallow it at first. Well, the number one thing that plants gain is... Carbon. We, as people, need oxygen for energy, and plants need Carbon to build more plant mass. Plants take in CO2 from the atmosphere, and in turn, do not breathe out any Carbon. Mass is not conserved. We do not conserve mass either, unless we are eating or drinking we are leaking mass into the air.
One of the most insightful experiments I can remember doing is growing a spider plant in a bottle of water. Why? Because new matter is apparently created out of nowhere. You start with: water, air, and a small plant. You end with: less water, air (for more or less), and a large plant. Where did the large plant come from? Did it get it's building blocks from the water? No. Water does not have enough materials. You can't build a plant from Hydrogen and Oxygen, and the minerals are (I assure you) completely insufficient to build a plant of the size observed. In my experience people often give 'the minerals in the water' as an answer. Don't listen to them, that's wrong! The large plant, in fact, got it's mass from the air.
This is actually an experiment that we have all observed over and over again. Ever notice that your houseplants seem to grow to a size larger than the dirt mass that you put in it? They do. It uses the junk that you breathe out of your mouth to make itself.
Why is this important?
Well, one reason is that plants can't move. It is an energetically loosing process to capture Carbon from the atmosphere. Thus it is a price the plant pays for being, well.... stationary. Why are we so much better at gathering organic substrates? Well, that's pretty much our job - to go scavenge for stuff. Needless to say, hetrotrophs come in all shapes and sizes, not all of which have the freedom of motion, but suffice it to say that placement is important. You can't be hetrotrophic and not have access to food. Plants, on the other hand, commonly thrive in environments where there is little matter that can be thought to constitute 'food'. Their right to live in these such environments is granted by the toil of hetrotrophs.
Thus, we (as hetrotrophs) don't 'leach' off of plants in any way, and I would revise the previous definitions for the sake of a middle or high school class. I would do this to avoid confusing students about the universal questions that they may not yet understand are bothering them (I was sure confused). But this task is not easy, I was perplexed as to how to revise this definition. I will allow myself more discussion after a first attempt:
Autrotrophs make their own energy, but rely on other life for distributing of matter.
Hetrotrophs gather their own matter, but rely on other life for enegy.
The part I am troubled by lies in the phrases "distributing of matter" and "gather matter" seen here. Surely there is some more eloquent phrase to use for this, right? School children will sure have a hard time with this one. Heck, physicists will have a hard time with this one. I've described what plants get from us, but what is it that plants get from us?? We should put it into some hard physical quantity, right? Entropy? Oh heck no! It's the opposite way around, hetrotrophs create more entropy by scattering Carbon into the atmosphere. Mobility? Eh... not quite so, though it does play a role in this. Perhaps, organization? My brain contorts around applicability of this word, as it is both the answer and the anti-answer. Hetrotrophs travel to the furthest corners of forests and livable spaces and find organic substrates to burn. The matter they burn can then be used by plants to create more plant matter.
Imagine this applied to industrial processes. Think about a world where burning fuels is actually doing a favor to someone by redistributing our Earth's raw materials. New skyscrapers are built without a single truck moving material, but instead Carbon sequesters located at the pinnacle of the structure churns out Carbon nanotubes. When the building has reached the end of its life, you don't have to pay anyone to take it away, but are instead are paid by someone to let them take it away and burn it for energy. The energy is used and the Carbon atoms once again float to the top of our highest buildings.
This elegant and strange process, my friends, isn't just the miracle of life. This is the miracle of gas. This is the miracle of liquids. The ability for things to disperse in certain conditions, while at the same time not disperse under other conditions, is the bane of our existence.
While we, as humans, use fluid processes to efficiently accomplish many isolated processes, a world-wide balance that contributes to our productivity is something that human society is far far away from. But someday we will live in such a balance. For now, I would encourage the reader to prep themselves for the kind of mentality that such a society will require. Think long and hard about what plants gain from our chemistry.