Emerald Green and
Sapphire Blue
∼fantasy and facts∽
Dr.
Satyabrata Ghosh
Ex-Associate Professor, Department of
Botany
Sree Chaitanya College
West Bengal 743268 - INDIA
Hold it! Do not get your eyebrows
raised. Surprised! Don’t be. No it is not a narrative about stones and gems;
yet something more precious than all the gems and gold; these are priceless which
no money can buy.
The
Sermon
In the
cold dark night of November 17, 1998, from the roof top I was viewing the most
wonderful and spectacular celestial event of my life – the Leonid meteor
shower, coming from the Tempel – Tuttle comet (the comet 55p –
discovered independently by E W L Tempel on December 19, 1865 and by H P Tuttle
on January 6, 1866; Kondrat'eva and Reznikov, 1985; Beech,
1998; Jenniskens, 2006; Maslov, 2007; Rendtel and Arlt, 2009). The tiny sparkling meteorites were traversing from north east
to south west, illuminating the whole sky with their short-lived nanosecond
sparklers, displaying the bursts of all the possible colours. All on a sudden,
to my utter surprise, a few of them started turning and twisting and hovering
over instead of traversing the course. It was unbelievable. Letters, words and
finally the sentences were being formed by those tiny heavenly glimmers. And
started vanishing as they appeared. I heard something; a strange discourse with
an admonition. For reason unknown my eyelids were getting heavier and I fell
asleep. Then came a heavenward thundering whisper “Leonid calling – wake up –
disseminate what you have seen – save blues and greens – commit no sin”. I woke
up, heavily perspiring and found nothing. The same old dark sky was twinkling
with the pulsars. Sitting alone in the glooms of dewy winter night and staring
at dark, my memory went blank momentarily until my paining neck and backache
reminded me of the Leonid events. Laughed at myself – Have I really seen any
skywriting meteors? No, I have not! It is not possible! These are all illusions
coming out of stresses and strains for watching the event for so long.
Nothing
happened; nothing came to my mind in these long fifteen years till the June 6th
of 2013, the world environment day. In the midnight, it was drizzling outside,
the thunder woke me up and with the rumbles came the same heavy whispering
voice reminding me every details and asking me to tell the world about whatever
I had seen on that ‘Leonid – night’-“Whoever
reads the Sky-write is destined to disseminate my admonition; ignorant is the
sinner of ignoring my commandments”. I could not move my limbs for long. A chill
was crawling along my spine with the thought of a dire consequence. Forgive me
O’ Lord! Now I have to let you all know what was written in the sky on that
night, and whatever I had heard – find them in the followings, remember and
disseminate or else! He knows!
The Sky-write – His Almighty
the Creator, created life and all that has been destined to be eternal; the
Creator painted them all with colour, every
colour has been empowered to speak for itself; it has been vowed that the
creations shall not be destroyed unless a sin is committed by the Created; and to
give them all a chance, and to balance his creation, on a dark celestial night He
created man – the sinner, and gave them intelligence – the power to view, to
perceive, to realize, to understand and at the end to appreciate the language of
all these colours; the sin is committed with this power only and only this
power can reverse it.
And the
Devine Voice – the voice came from the
pulpit of heaven and said “at every point of sin committed, at every moment
pain is inflicted on Mother Nature by the sinner, the Colours shall look fader
and long before all the Colours fade out the sinner shall be withdrawn from the
scene, forever”.
Prelude
To have his
mercy upon us, to save our soul, and to protect and restore the colours, we
should know how all the sin has been committed and how the divine laws of
Mother Nature have been transgressed against. Followings are the prelude to perceive
the meaning of all these heavenly colours that have bonded all forms of
inorganic and organic life together and to understand how the colours are
fading away.
The Blues
From
distant space our planet earth looks blue that gives its characteristic name
‘the blue planet’ (Drinkwater et al, 2009).
A closer look shows a seamless colour mosaic of vibrant blues with greyish
white coils – our vast oceans, ice and atmosphere; and wide and dense brilliant
greens and browns – the plants on our land mass – the markers of origin and
evolution of our ‘cellular life’.
Surface
of the planet earth is surrounded or covered by layers of various gases, called
atmosphere, and these gases are retained around by the gravity of earth. The most
important components of the atmospheric gases are Nitrogen/78.084%,
Oxygen/20.946%, Argon/0.934%, Carbon dioxide/0.035%, and Hydrogen/0.000055% and
lesser amount of no less important gases as Helium/0.000524%, Neon/0.001818%,
Methane (CH4)/ 0.0001745%, Krypton/0.000114% etc. Beside this water
vapour or moisture is always present @ more or less 1% v/v. The atmosphere is
stratified and from topmost to the lowermost, extending from sea level to a
maximum of 800 km, there are mainly five layers namely Exosphere, Thermosphere,
Mesosphere, Stratosphere and Troposphere, and also with certain very important
intermediate layers as ozone layer and ionosphere. The troposphere with denser
gaseous molecules varies in height extending upto 9 km (at poles) to 17 km (at
equator). This troposphere, together with stratosphere, holds more than 80% of
the atmospheric mass and supports all sorts of autotrophic and heterotrophic
modes of life. It is known that light energy of shorter wave lengths are
scattered most by these gas molecules and in the denser zones of troposphere
and stratosphere most of the scattering occurs by the high energy gas molecules.
Therefore, as the blue light is most scattered, the sky looks blue and also
this turns our large mass of oceans blue as the later reflects the sky-blue (Mitchell, 1989; Lutgens et al, 1995; Houghton et al, 2001; Wallace and Hobbs. 2006; Zahnle
et al, 2010; Blasing, 2013).
The
blue is losing its hue every moment by the presence ever increasing pollutants
resulting from countless ways of anthropogenic activities. Our present
agricultural practice, industries, urbanization, automobile emission, mining
(particularly of fossil fuels, metals and calcium compounds) and electricity
generation, coupled with deforestation to procure timber and to open up new
agricultural and urban areas are the prime factors responsible for the
accumulation of pollutants in our environment and particularly in our
atmosphere. Every manufactured item we consume is adding more pollutant to the
environment. The most notorious polluting agents as various oxides of carbon
(CO, CO2), oxides of sulfur (SO2, SO3) and
oxides of nitrogen (NO2, N2O, NO), chlorofluorocarbon
(CFC), methane (CH4),
formaldehyde (HCHO) etc. are collectively called Green – House – Gases (GHG)
and are responsible for Global Warming
and El-Niño, two most notorious
phenomena of the Anthropocene age. Oxides of heavy metals, ozone (O3)
and various volatile hydrocarbons (VHCs) or volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
are other dangerous atmospheric pollutants coming from auto-emissions, metal
industries, manufacturing and processing of paints and all sorts of industries
which burn fossil fuels. Do we need all these to survive? No way. Most of them
are junk. Judicious selection is the demand of the day. And the rest of the
answer is ‘Go Green to save Blue’.
Planet
Earth
With
the reduction of carbon and origin of carbon based organic molecules, organic
life began on earth. The inherent property of organic molecules to undergo
rapid change under the influence of all sorts of physical, chemical and
biological factors sets the inevitable course and pace of change over time, called
evolution, which led ultimately to the origin of cellular life on earth predictably
about 4 billion years ago (bya or BYA). Approximately 4 – 3.5 billion years’ (byr/BYR)
history of organic evolution and diversity of cellular forms had
have
a number of climax points before and after all the five major ‘Mass Extinction
Events’ which occurred during the Ordovician
Period (Ordovician–Silurian extinction event - end Ordovician or O-S:
450–440 Ma/million years ago or mya/MYA. Two events occurred that killed off 27% of all families and 57% of all
genera); Devonian Period (Late Devonian extinction: 375–360 Ma near the Devonian Carboniferous transition
- a prolonged series of extinctions eliminated about 70% of all species); Permian Period (250 mya at
the Permian-Triassic transition. Earth's largest extinction killed
57% of all families and 83% of all genera), Triassic Period (205-180 mya at the Triassic-Jurassic transition; about 23% of all families
and 48% of all genera - 20% of marine families and 55% of marine genera went
extinct –Jurassic extinction event - End Triassic)) and Cretaceous Period (65 mya Cretaceous –
Paleogene extinction event - End Cretaceous, K-T extinction, or K-Pg extinction;
75% of species became extinct).
It
has been estimated that each and every climax was built up with new species and
only less than 1% are extant of all the species ever existed (Schopf,1983;
Abramov and Stephen 2009)
on earth before every ‘mass extinction event’.
Biological
diversity of the Holocene Epoch is an accumulation of species evolved over 35
million years (myr/MYR) since the Eocene Epoch and long after the ‘Dinosaur
Extinction Point’ in the fifth mass extinction event, during late Cretaceous
Period about 65 mya (Lyons et al, 2004 a).
Present biodiversity climax has been
resulted from a species explosion after the end of the Ice Age about 0.01mya
and may be the last climax of all, as is being feared by the scientists from
every discipline of science, if the degree of devastation of ‘nature and
natural resources’ by a single species, the Homo
sapiens Linn. (1758) Ssp. sapiens
continues to remain unchanged and unchecked.
This
‘mass extinction event’ of the Anthropocene age (Zalasiewicz
et al, 2008; Revkin, 2011), is being designated by the naturalists as the ‘Sixth Mass Extinction’
or ‘Holocene Extinction’ and the sixth
mass extinction exceed rates of loss in the five previous mass extinction
events in the fossil record (Lyons et al, 2004 b).
All
the recent data, accumulated from every possible discipline of scientific
research, had been telling us every day of the last five decades that all these
‘greens and blues’ are getting fader and fader every moment with an ever
increasing pace.
The Greens
The
origin of the green pigments, the chlorophylls, and ultimately the appearance
of cellular forms enclosing these pigments, curved the atmosphere of earth in
an inevitable and an irreversible way by liberating free oxygen molecule from
water to the atmosphere and consequently slowly increasing the concentration of
free oxygen in the atmospheric which finally became saturated and stable with
oxygen at its present state (20.946% v/v or 209,460
ppmv). The obvious outcome of the availability of free atmospheric
oxygen is the origin of ‘aerobic or oxygen dependent forms of cellular life’. The pattern and course of evolution of oxygen dependent
multi-cellular visible forms of living objects proceeded further along the
innumerable varieties of autotrophic – heterotrophic or producer – consumer cyclic
relationship where conversion of inorganic molecules into organic remained
always the key of all processes and factors. These evolutionary sequences
synthesized a web of relationship in between autotrophs and heterotrophs where
the loss of any single one shall adversely affect the sustenance of many others
in a chain reaction (Olson, 2006; Buick, 2008; Javaux et al, 2010;
Beraldi-Campesi, 2013).
These
green pigmented cells with the cellulosic outer cover, the cell wall, are
called plants. When the vast ‘Blue Ocean and the Sky’ is the maternity of
cellular forms of life and the Greens, the Green living beings are the
protectors of all the Blues of our mother nature.
Plants range from tiny microscopic
algae to gigantic Sequoia Endl.
(Sequoioideae; Cupressaceae; Pinales) and Sequoiadendron (Lindl.) J. Buchh., which can attain a
height of 95m with a girth ranging from 15 – 20m (Harvey et al, 1980; Ornduff, 1994).
Plants and microorganisms work in tandem to convert inorganic substances into
organic compounds, together can occupy every possible niche on this planet and make
every niche habitable.
Pigmentation and autotrophism form
the basis of the colourful world of living beings. Life depends on this
interaction between autotrophs and heterotrophs or more elaborately between
green plants, microorganisms and animals.
These green plants provide us with
food, fodder and pharmaceuticals, and in the way keep the planet cool by
entrapping enormous amount of solar energy and CO2; liberate free
oxygen into the atmosphere that we need most to breadth our life; absorb most
of the pollutants to serve as the pollution sink; the network of root system
hold the soil tight and prevent rivers and rivulets from being choked by
runaway soil and thus prevent overflowing of running water system causing flood
during monsoon times; root systems make the soil porous and prevent loss of
surface water, and thereby help build up underground natural water reservoirs;
green leaf surface absorbs enough solar radiation to keep the tropospheric
column cool and transpiration add huge amount of moisture to atmosphere and
together these phenomena help rain-cloud formation and precipitation – and the
list in unending – and at the end have made the planet habitable for every
creature to evolve and survive.
To keep planet habitable the earth
needs plants and to survive the plants require every other prokaryotes and
eukaryotes in a network called Biodiversity. To safeguard our biodiversities we
need to know them well and we should find a way to assess a biodiversity
qualitatively and quantitatively.
Biodiversity
It is
the degree of variation of various forms of life within a given space
or in an ecosystem, in the formation of a biome, in a niche or in an
entire planet. It is a manifestation of nature or health of the
ecosystems (Edward
O.Wilson 1988). Biodiversity is in part a function
of climate. It is the only situation Mother Nature has given us for the manifestation
of all the hues possible.
The term BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY was used first by wildlife
scientist and conservationist Raymond F.
Dasmann in 1968. In 1980s it
came into common usage in science and environmental policy. Thomas Lovejoy, in the foreword to the
book - Conservation Biology, introduced the term to the scientific
community. Until then the term "natural diversity" was common.
In a Science Programme of The Nature Conservancy or TNC, USA – Robert E. Jenkins, its head, Lovejoy and
other leading conservation scientists at the time in America advocated the
use of "biological diversity". The term's contracted form Biodiversity had been
coined by W.G. Rosen in 1985 while
planning the 1986 National Forum on Biological Diversity organized
by the National Research Council (NRC). It first appeared in a
publication in 1988
when socio-biologist E. O.
Wilson used it as the title of the proceedings of that forum.
Symbiotic Interaction – Survival of
every species in a biodiversity depends on its interaction with other species
in that particular niche. An association or a bond is formed in between
microorganisms, plants and animals in a niche where all the involved components
are benefitted from each other and has become indispensable for each other. This
association or bondage is called Symbiosis. A variety of insects as termites,
leaf-cutting ants, ambrosia beetle etc. culture fungi and form fungal garden,
from which they derive essential nutrients and without which nesting or colony
structure maintenance may not be possible and a particular fungal species or
strain gets a vertical clonal transfer in the colonies originated from a
particular colony, in a given space. However, as the genetic studies show
variations in the fungal strains in different colonies, over a greater area, a polyphyletic
origin and horizontal transfer is also indicated. This association includes varieties
of fungal genera as Termitomyces, Leucoagaricus, Lepiota, Auricularia, Xylaria etc (Chapela et al, 1994; Aanen et al,
2002). All the tree species and almost all the perennial herbs and
shrubs in their root systems develop an inseparable and indispensable
association with fungi called mycorrhiza (or actinorrhiza – when in association
with Actinomycetes), where the fungal symbionts get nutrients from plants and
help the plants to survive and grow precisely by protecting the roots from soil
borne pathogens, by solubilizing minerals, particularly phosphates, to be
absorbed by roots and by increasing the water holding capacity in the
rhizosphere (Trappe, 1987; Alexopoulos, 2004). From
pollination to dispersal and germination of seeds, from nitrogen fixation to
providing protection to plants from pests and predators, the patterns of symbioses are unending.
Each and every autotrophic and heterotrophic microscopic and macroscopic
species in a biodiversity forms an integrated interactive web with each other
in such a way that the loss of a single species brings a cascade effect of
devastation of the whole biodiversity.
Assessment – From the preceding line it
is now clear that the very survival of our own species is at stake. Somewhere,
at some point, we have ignored the admonition and have started dishonoring
nature’s will of our origin. Now let us be a little optimistic. May be
it is not yet far too late. We have now to protect and reinstate whatever is still
there; because we are the only species made to be answerable to our future. To
protect, we have to know, to understand and to assess the degree of variation
in a biodiversity. And at this juncture the implication of mathematics is
absolutely unavoidable.
Diversity of a niche or of an ecotone
is assessed and expressed in terms of an index. The most popularly used indices
are Shannon’s Index and Simpson’s Index (Colinvaux, 1973;
Jost, 2006; Tuomisto, 2010 a, b; Ghosh, 2012)where Species Richness (S) and Relative
(Proportionate) Abundances of Individuals (Pi) are taken into account
for further determination of Species Diversity. The Diversity Indices of
individual ecotones can be expressed and compared in terms of Shannon’s index
(Shannon H) and Simpson’s index (Simpson D, which may be expressed as
reciprocal of D as 1/D or as 1-D), using the following formulae as,
Where H = Shannon diversity index, Pi =
fraction of the entire population made up of species I, S = numbers
of species encountered, ∑ = sum from species 1 to species S, ln is natural
logarithm and D = Simpson’s diversity index (ED Simpson’s
equitability or evenness). Shannon's
equitability (EH) can be calculated by dividing H by Hmax
(here Hmax= lnS). Equitability assumes a value between 0 and 1 with
1 being complete evenness. The species evenness or equitability can be
calculated and expressed in terms of Shannon EH and can be compared
with same expression of Simpson ED. It is now evident that with decrease
in types (which in ecology is usually species and may even be higher taxa) in
any data set the equitability or evenness index value approaches zero (0) and
with single species (type) dominance the equitability value falls. However,
increase in number of species (types) with frequency of individuals showing
evenness the equitability index approaches one (1). Here, at this juncture, it
should be mentioned that these preceding methods may not be enough and all to
understand and explain true diversity of samples (types, species etc.) in a
data set. It depends on the purpose, character and nature of the weighted mean
of proportional abundances of types (species). While in Shannon Entropy the
weighted geometric mean of proportional abundance has been considered, the
other entropy (namely Herfindahl-Hirschman index or HHI – with the
same result as of Simpson’s index, Gini-Simpson
index – to measure the Probability of Interspecific Encounter or PIE,
Gibbs-Martin index or Blau index, Berger-Parker
index, Rényi entropy etc.) may have a different weighted mean of proportional
abundances (as generalized mean, harmonic mean or arithmetic mean), depending
on the purpose and nature of the study (microbiological, economic, demographic,
sociological, psychological etc.
Human
Impact – From palaeontological and palaeoanthropological evidences on
biodiversity it has been revealed that since the emergence of human beings
biodiversity reduction or destruction has become a regular phenomenon. Initial
phase of destruction occurred at slower pace and is attributable to
indiscriminate killing or hunting which in many occasion wiped out a variety of
rare and endangered species and thereby reducing altogether the basic genetic
diversity that we had been gifted with by nature. Loss of genetic diversity is
equivalent to putting the processes of natural evolution backward. The mass
killings were not always associated with hunting for food. Predatory conflicts
arising from competition in the same hunting area, fear psychosis because of
poor night vision coupled with death from animal attack, advantage of hunting
in the open grazing land (the Neanderthals – Homo neanderthalensis,
with heavily built upper part and poor legs, preferred hunting from forest
fringes), onset of archaic agricultural practices and many more related factors
forced modern humans to make unnecessary killings and clearing of forest areas
which resulted into habitat and biodiversity destruction.
Climatological,
geological, biological and sociological evidences in recent times have clearly and
correctly indicated that agriculture, fossil fuel combustion for automobiles,
for electricity generation and for industrial manufacturing of human
consumables, frenzied urbanization and rise
in poverty with explosion in human population, the products of modern
civilization, are the prime factors responsible for environmental pollution,
global warming and habitat destruction culminating into the holocaust of
Holocene Extinction (Vitousek et al, 1997).
Measures
Taken – Although a
little late, and may not be adequately, number of measures have been undertaken
globally and in India. The Protocols of United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC), since it was negotiated in 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio
de Janeiro (popularly known by its title, the Earth Summit), through the resolutions of Conferences of Parties (COP), Conferences of
Member Parties (CMP) and of United Nations Climate Change Conferences (UNCCC)during
their summits, from time to time, have formed the basic framework for the
reduction of the GHG which is responsible for climate change and global warming
(Ghosh, 2012; UNFCCC web ref.). The
framework, which binds signatories’ governments upon ratification, have
emphasized on minimization of fossil fuel combustion and carbon foot print
watch, prevention of deforestation and complete eradication of poverty.
International
– United
Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD, 1992)
and Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety;
Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species – in Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES);
Ramsar Convention (Wetlands);
Bonn Convention on Migratory Species;
World Heritage Convention (indirectly by
protecting biodiversity habitats)
Regional Conventions such as the Apia Convention
Bilateral agreements such as
the Japan-Australia Migratory Bird Agreement
Global Summit on Climate Change (Durban Summit,
2011- extending Kyoto Protocol till 2017, Kyoto 11th December, vide
COP 7, 2001& Cancun Summit, COP 16, CMP 5, 2010
INDIA
– India, being a
non-annex member and signatory party to UNFCCC, COP & CMP, is bound to all
these international protocols and frameworks.
The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, The Forest
(Conservation) Act/Rules, 1980/2003 and The Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972
formed the basis of biodiversity and habitat conservation in India. In tandem
with the Protocols of UNFCCC a number of measures have been undertaken recently
by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.
Strategies –
The
conservation strategy includes several measures.
1. Removal or
complete eradication exotic species so that the native species can recover
their niches. Simultaneous identification of suitable species for
reintroduction is necessary;
2. Biodiversity
Banking by placing a monetary value on the Biodiversity;
3. Rearing or Ex Situ conservation of rare and
endangered species;
4. Assessment of
the gene pool and Gene Banking for future conservation;
5. Reduction or, if
possible complete banning, of use of pesticides, herbicides, lichenicides etc.
in an exposed area;
6. Protection of
wildlife and creation of wildlife corridors and inter-state treaties in between
sovereign countries are of utmost necessity.
Hopes and Dreams
At this pace of environmental pollution and destruction of nature
the future of planet earth are bleak. Our last resort is our hope.
There is no harm in dreaming that with all our intelligence,
honesty and humane endeavor, we shall, someday, be able to restore whatever we
have lost till date.
May His Almighty have mercy to give us back our Danian
biodiversity, our Rupelian flora and our Tortonian fauna.
Acknowledgement
Author is
thankful to all his students, friends and followers to inspire to write this
article.
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