657
Occupants of all other ecosystems taunt the lessons of pH; while those soaring
high above the whitecaps—for example, the 21 globe-trotting Diomedeidae family
of albatrosses, all threatened or near threatened according to the IUCN—have preoccupations that outdate our own fixations by tens of millions of years. But every
single phytoplanktonic individual, among more than 5000 known phytoplankton
species, the most abundant organisms crucial to the functioning of the aquatic environments of earth, has dramatic lessons for us which we cannot just access, despite
all of our earnest probes.
9
The lifestyles of a biosphere, simply stated, transcend
specificity, microscopes, DNA markers, even if our conceptualizations, perusal by
experiment of everything we can imagine, temporarily comfort us. There are erratic,
9 See “Phytoplankton,” https://coastalstudies.org/stellwagen-bank-national-marine-sanctuary/phytoplankton/, Accessed August 28, 2019.
Fig. 71.2 Dr. Tarun Chhabra Photographing Strobilanthes lanata in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu
State, India. (Photo © M. C. Tobias)
71.2 Biosemiotic Impulses
Occupants of all other ecosystems taunt the lessons of pH; while those soaring
high above the whitecaps—for example, the 21 globe-trotting Diomedeidae family
of albatrosses, all threatened or near threatened according to the IUCN—have preoccupations that outdate our own fixations by tens of millions of years. But every
single phytoplanktonic individual, among more than 5000 known phytoplankton
species, the most abundant organisms crucial to the functioning of the aquatic environments of earth, has dramatic lessons for us which we cannot just access, despite
all of our earnest probes.
9
The lifestyles of a biosphere, simply stated, transcend
specificity, microscopes, DNA markers, even if our conceptualizations, perusal by
experiment of everything we can imagine, temporarily comfort us. There are erratic,
9 See “Phytoplankton,” https://coastalstudies.org/stellwagen-bank-national-marine-sanctuary/phytoplankton/, Accessed August 28, 2019.
Fig. 71.2 Dr. Tarun Chhabra Photographing Strobilanthes lanata in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu
State, India. (Photo © M. C. Tobias)
71.2 Biosemiotic Impulses