Paul R.Ehrlich
Through photosynthesis, plants are able, with the help of sunlight, to combine carbon dioxide and water, both of which have a low energy content, into high-energy carbohydrates such as sugars, starches, and cellulose. The Machinery of Nature, 1986.
Paul Ehrlich is Professor of Biological Sciences and Population Studies at Stanford University, and the author of The Population Bomb, The End of Affluence, and Extinction, plus many scientific papers. He is the recipient of the John Muir Award.
Evidence abounds that different environmental situations cause populations in different geographic areas to evolve diverse characteristics. Ibid.
The environment shapes the genetic endowment of individuals through the medium of natural selection, and, in addition, it helps to determine their phenotypes by interacting with their genotypes in the course of development. Ibid.
Prey individuals that are in prime reproductive condition, those that are most critical to the future of the prey population, are generally lest likely to be caught. Ibid.
. . . predators that frequently encounter one kind of prey (as they would if it were at high density) often form a search image - a preconceived notion of where to look for a common prey and what to look for - that helps them find more of the same kind of prey. Ibid.
Our planet is clearly not a static ecological arena at all, but one perturbed by vast geological events. Ibid.
Diversity clearly breeds diversity, but how and why the process got started remains a mystery. Ibid.
Unless steps are taken to alter human behavior so that our species begins to tread lightly on the planet, pesticides, acid rains, forest clearance, desertification, and the other assaults against the ecosystems that support all life are bound eventually to lead to a collapse of civilization. Ibid.