I hear folks saying bugs are dying off because of changes in the environment, but shouldn’t bugs be some of the best equipped to handle changes? I imagine they reproduce faster than humans, and so I’d think their genes could adjust faster as well. You’d think we’d be having a worse time than bugs as the environment changes?
In: Biology
Imagine you have an animal that is adapted to survive in an extremely wide range of environments. Now imagine that you have another animal that reproduces more quickly, but is only well adapted to survive in a narrower range of climates.
If the local climate changes, the faster reproducing animal will have an advantage in terms of how quickly it can change the environment it is best suited for, but the animal that is already suited for a wider range of environments can sustain larger changes before such adaptation even becomes a consideration.
The environment is changing faster than a lot of bugs can adapt to it, but it hasn’t yet changed so much that humans can’t survive in it. If and when we get to the point where the changes to the environment fall outside of what humans can easily survive in, we will absolutely fair worse than most bugs in that situation. A lot of bugs are just hitting the point where that is a concern faster than we are because they aren’t as well suited to the variety of environments that humans are.
Between existing genetic traits and cultural/technological adaptations, humans are *extremely* versatile in what sorts of environments we can successfully inhabit. But if we ever reach a point where further evolution is required to be able to continue surviving in the environment we have created, yeah, we’re going to be in trouble.
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