The main concepts governing the supply of biological resources and the maintenance
of biodiversity
are:-
- the niches, which define
the space and food allocated to different species by natural
selection;
- the ecosystems, which
are communities of species linked by bonds of food and shelter;
• ecosystems
have a structure, defined as groups of particular species and their spatial
distribution;
• ecosystems
have a dynamics, defined as;
-changes in the sizes of
populations;
-flows of nutrients and
energy through food chains,
-renewal cycles of bacteria,
which release carbon and nutrients by decomposition.
Wise use of natural resources requires information about their origins, amounts and
stability.
The balance between production and utilisation of natural resources may be considered
in relation
to the physical stocks and flows of the planetary economy. This is defined by changes in physical
resources which originated when the solar system and the Earth were created. These are now
expressed in the Earth's structural dynamics ( movements of continents, volcanic effects of lunar
and solar cycles on the land and oceans. Solar flows result in the balance between heat energy
reaching the Earth and its reflection back into space. The interactions between the planetary and
solar forces produce long term and short term changes in ocean currents, tides and the weather,
which in turn govern rates of erosion of land and sedimentation in the seas.
However, it is necessary to take into account the wider cosmic picture of the origins
of the
planetary system in the sense that life on Earth has physical continuity with the origins of the
universe.
