Re: The Killers of Oz

["Eric Martichuski" <herewiss13@hotmail.com>]

> from: Phil Hore what about the arctic? surely it has poor soil yet the 
> largest land carnivore around in the polar >bear. It also has the artic 
> fox. Not bad for a place with little to no vegetation!

It's got plenty of vegetation, it's just really _flat_ vegetation. ;-)  It 
is telling, however, that there is only _one_ large herbivore (for a given 
value of large).  They have _one_ real predator, the wolf (bears are more 
opportunistic hunters than actual active predators).

So what you really have is low nutrients (soil/flora/etc.) = low diversity 
of fauna, which, if I'm understanding correctly, fits in with the general 
theory.

The polar bear doesn't really figure into this ecosystem in re: 
soil/vegetation because virtually all of its food is taken indirectly from 
the nutrient-rich sea.  It eats seals, the seals eat fish, the fish eat 
plankton.  If the artic seas weren't so rich, I doubt polar bears would 
survive.  You'll notice you don't find them inland much.

And I wouldn't make too much of the fox either.  You find foxes everywhere.  
It's just a reaction to the prevalence of rodents.  There are even foxes in 
the Sahara! (but only one kind in each ecosystem, note.  Whereas other, more 
temperate regions can support red and grey foxes both (as well as a number 
of other small carnivores).  ;-)

Eric
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