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Man - The Dominant Species |
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by Dharmendra Kapri | 28-02-2017 03:42
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Human civilization has gradually evolved by passing through many distinct stages- hunting, food-gathering, agricultural and industrial stages. each stage made human species more powerful than others and increased his ability to manipulate the environment.
Hunting and Food-gathering Stage- As a hunter, man was a predator- a particularly efficient predator because of his use of tools, his intelligence, and his social organization. He was a secondary or tertiary consumer. At times, he was also to some extent a primary consumer, collecting and eating nuts and fruits of plants. Agricultural Stage- Man's ecological relationships changed only slowly through the nearly two million years of the Pleistocene period. But with the agricultural revolution only 15 thousand years ago, these relationships began to change rapidly. Crops provided an increased food supply. The ceaseless search for food was now no longer necessary. This provided periods of leisure while the crops grew and stored harvest were used. More rapid invention of tools and techniques was achieved. Increases in food supply resulted in an increase in human population. Permanent settlements, first villages and then towns, came into being. man also harnessed animal power. Man's role in the biosphere became very different from that of other organism. Industrial Stag- Man's learning, accumulated from one generation to the next through language and culture, has greatly changed his ecological position. He has gradually made himself independent from the resources of any other particular biological community, and has become a maker of communities from a member of a community. This change occurred gradually since the Agricultural Revolution, but it was greatly accelerated by the Industrial Revolution. Within the last two hundred years, man has replaced the power of animals with machine power. He has simplified ecosystems. In clearing land, he removes the diversified vegetation, usually replacing it with single crops - grains, vegetables or trees. With fire and cooking, he has become a primary consumer, or secondary consumer, growing grass and grains to feed goats, sheep, cattle and poultry. Man also tries to eliminate the competitors. He is able to check sharing his fruits and vegetables with worms and his poultry with cats and foxes. He is becoming increasingly successful in controlling his own pathogenic parasites and even the saprovores. Thus, he is becoming a terminal level in food chains. Man has also created new artificial ecosystems- cities, where soil has been covered with concrete and steel. Man also shuts himself indoors, manufacturing weather year round to suit his needs. All this has finally changed the biosphere into a human-dominant environment called Noosphere (noo= mind, sphere- domain). The self-sufficient biosphere is being used by man as a means of resources for himself alone unmindful of the needs of other organism.
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