ONE BIOTA

“The black prairie was built by the prairie plants, a hundred distinctive species of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, by the prairie fungi, insects, and bacteria; by the prairie mammals and birds, all interlocked in one humming community of co-operations and competitions, one biota. This biota through ten thousand years of living and dying, burning and growing, preying and fleeing, freezing and thawing, built that dark and bloody ground we call prairie.”   Aldo Leopold , Round River

Yes, Leopold got it right. There is only one biota. He coined this phrase in reference to the formation of what we call prairie. But I think we can extrapolate the phrase to global significance. Think about it. All life is connected. All life is dependent on things like carbon, water, sunlight, nutrients, rocks, soil, temperature, oxygen , etc. One life form performs functions in the ecosystem needed by other living…