Biodiversity
Welcome to c/Biodiversity @ Mander.xyz!
A community about the variety of life on Earth at all levels; including plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi.
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This is a work in progress, please don't mind the mess.
2023-06-16: We invite our users to contribute resources for the sidebar.
2023-06-15: Looking for mods!
About
Biodiversity is a term used to describe the enormous variety of life on Earth. It can be used more specifically to refer to all of the species in one region or ecosystem. Biodiversity refers to every living thing, including plants, bacteria, animals, and humans. Scientists have estimated that there are around 8.7 million species of plants and animals in existence. However, only around 1.2 million species have been identified and described so far, most of which are insects. This means that millions of other organisms remain a complete mystery.
Over generations, all of the species that are currently alive today have evolved unique traits that make them distinct from other species. These differences are what scientists use to tell one species from another. Organisms that have evolved to be so different from one another that they can no longer reproduce with each other are considered different species. All organisms that can reproduce with each other fall into one species. Read more...
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- Don't throw mud. Be kind and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
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Quick Links
Resources
- The Convention on Biological Diversity (UN)
- The Biodiversity Heritage Library
- Maps of the World's Biodiversity
- Ecosystems and Human Well-Being (free e-book)
- Falling Fruit: Map of the Urban Harvest
Bypass Paywalls
- On Ethics 1 2 3 4
- WaybackMachine (archive.org)
- Behind the Overlay Browser Extension
- ladder
- Anna's Archive
- Bypass Paywalls Browser Extension (see readme for Chrome & mobile options.)
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The title is misleading, the study doesn't say they're a myth, just not the norm. This would be like saying, "Marine mammals are a myth."
The study isn't saying "alpha males don't exist". It's saying not all primates have clear dominance across gender lines, ie. Males always dominating females. Some species like chimps and baboons do have male dominated social structures, while others have female dominated social structures like bonobos and lemur. Though for the majority, 70%, there is no clear gender that is dominant.
It doesn't say anything about hierarchy within gender though. As far as I know chimps do have a hierarchy within the males and there is an "alpha" at the top. That's not a myth and since the article does say chimps are male dominated it can be said that the troops has an alpha male who is at the top of the hierarchy.
This doesn't mean humans naturally have alpha males, as the article shows there is a lot of variance within primates, but alpha males are a real part of that variety, not a myth.
Spoken like a real alpha ๐ช