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why not more?; A topic about lacking explosions.
Topic Started: Jun 13 2010, 02:31 PM (416 Views)
ATEK Azul
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Transhuman
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This isn't a project but instead it's for the discussion and speculation on why life has not had more Cambrian explosions.

The main places in time that I see more explosions is when life went on to land, the Triassic, a airial explosion never seen on Earth thanks to a lack of floating life and then a under ground explosion.

The reason I suggest the last 2 is because they have the most availible niches.

So please comment, discuss and speculate.
I am dyslexic, please ignore the typo's!
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Holben
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Well, the cambrian explosion was the result of many many niches opening up unexploited.

At no other time has this happened on such a great scale.

After extinctions and etc., there is always a surge, but nothing like the cambrian explosion will ever happen again unless all life on earth is rapidly superseded.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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colddigger
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Because body plans have already been established and niches are quickly filled by such body plans before new ones can arise? Chordates, worms, arachnids, molluscs etc.

Basically the cambrian explosion was an "experimental" phase for multicellular body plans, there was nothing really there to kill them or compete so you could have animals alive and thriving then which would be knocked out of existence in a snap now. Of course predators appeared to take advantage of this and arms races helped out in the variety and such...
Edited by colddigger, Jun 13 2010, 02:45 PM.
Oh Fine.

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Practically Uninformed
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Because, the rate of bauplan production has been decreasing with the increase in niche establishment.
You may be a king or a lil' street sweeper, but sooner or later, you'll dance with the reaper!
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ATEK Azul
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Thats why I had suggested a mass shift of life into subterrainian and atmospheric enviroments which could create enough need for new niches that it could make an explosion.

Though that might not be the only way.
I am dyslexic, please ignore the typo's!
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Holben
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Well, creatures already gradually colonise all these areas before mass migration happens. That's going to happen once you've had one explosion.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Toad of Spades
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It is possible for one to happen again, but there needs to be an extremely severe extinction. Life would need to be reduced to the microscopic scale with only a few tiny primitive animal survivors. Out of the survivors they could diversify and repeat something like what happened in the Cambrian.

So it could happen, but things would need to be reduced to basically pond scum level.
Edited by Toad of Spades, Jun 13 2010, 02:58 PM.
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Holben
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Or if life is somehow superseded entirely, perhaps by a new cell type which fills the atmosphere and digests all modern cells.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Pando
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Because the niches are filled, and they have to outcompete already existing species for the niche. That's why there was a Cambrian explosion - because there was a bunch of new niches that weren't available before. That's also why there are a lot of new species after a mass extinction - after the plants return the surviving animals can adapt to fill the new niches.
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