Balance

If you look at the size of populations of animals in an ecosystem, you notice an interesting thing. Balance is always achieved through time. This is something I learned in my biology class. You can probably find this for yourself by searching for animal populations and Biology online. Basically, you will see if one population is larger or smaller, it will affect the other populations. Let's take an example.

You have a predator like a Lion, and you have a herbivore like a Gazelle. So lets say that there are very few Lions. How does this affect the Gazelle population do you think? In case you didn't know, the Lion's eat the Gazelle for food. What biologists have observed and recorded is that the population of Gazelle will increase when there are fewer predators to hunt them. But later in time, what happens is that the Lion population will grow because the Gazelle population has grown so much. Presumably this is because it is much easier to catch a Gazelle because there are so many of them. So what happens is that the Lion population with flourish and increase thanks to the large quantities of food available. However as the Lion population grows, they start to eat more and more Gazelle's. Then it becomes harder for the Lion's to catch the Gazelles. So then the Lion population decreases as the Gazelle population decreases, essentially due to starvation or simply lack of food to allow for more birthing and survival of new offspring. At some point the Gazelle population will increase again because there are less Lion's hunting them. This cycle continues forever like an balancing act. There is always a balance.

If there were not any predators the Gazelle's would still be limited by their environments. If they overeat, then the plants won't be able to grow back fast enough. Thus they can cause their own starvation and decrease in population. Their population would decrease and then again the food would grow back. The plants themselves can go through such balancing cycles.

Something interesting that Biologists have observed is that when you have large population, there is a higher risk of diseases spreading. Thus the bigger the population the higher chances of catching a disease. Thus diseases are a way to maintain the balance in populations as well.

Balance, you see, is quite a practical and physical thing. I am learning to live Balance in my own life in practical ways that support my life.

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