On Thu, October 5, 2006 11:49, markpeaty wrote:
> That said, I read with interest a year or two ago about certain kinds
> of insects [I think they are in North America somewhere] which lie
> dormant in the earth in some pre-adult stage for a PRIME number of
> years, 11, 13, were chosen by different species. Apparently the payoff
> for this strategy is that few predator species can match this length of
> time, and repeating cycles of shorter periods cannot 'resonate' so as
> to launch a large cohort of predators when the prey species produces
> its glut after waiting for the prime number of years.
An alternative hypothesis put forth, equally plausible to me, is that
different species co-evolved to be dormant different prime numbers of
years. This would create the minimum competition for environmental
resources as they came out of their dormant period; prime numbers having
the largest least common multiple.
Of course they didn't do this with any intention or awareness; natural
selection on random variations in dormancy period length would favor this
kind of outcome.
-Johnathan
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Thu Oct 05 2006 - 16:12:02 PDT