Ecological Succession and Us

I know there may be many of you who are not familiar with this term "Ecological Succession". So I would start with describing about this term in a very simple way. Let's say you dig out a pot hole somewhere in an open piece of land. You fill that pot hole with clean water; By clean, I mean clean and sterilized, without any trace of any life form in it. Leave that pot hole of water open and observe it after two days. You will probably find traces of bacteria and other micro-organisms in the water. Leave that pot hole for a month maybe, you will find certain insects/larvae inside it. Leave it for a year, you'll find more things inside it. And after certain point in time, that pot hole will almost be self-sufficient location to sustain a bunch of life forms inside it. Maybe a small eco-system in itself.

The point here that I want to make is that the piece of matter/habitat which was void of any life form but was kept somewhere near the well established habitats of life forms is now being occupied by sufficient amount of living organisms. And on earth, we do find very unexpected places, hard to support life, where at least some micro-organisms do rule. This is something I adore of all living organisms. And that is what Ecological Succession means. To put it in simple way, Ecological Succession is a property of life to expand itself into whatever void space nearest itself it finds appropriate opportunity and means to. Just like that life void water in a pot hole was occupied by life given the proper amount of time.

In this post, I want to show an extended picture of this Ecological Succession to deduce some fascinating conclusions. Have you heard about Mars One project? If not, then a little of the following space of texts I will use to describe what it is.

Mars One is a not-for-profit organization based in the Netherlands that has put forward conceptual plans to establish a permanent human colony on Mars by 2025,^[1] also planning on having the first humans land on Mars, and beating NASA's Orion missions by a decade.

(Copied from Wikipedia)

So in short, it is a project that tries to put man into Mars by 2025 or a bit later. And yes it is a one way ticket volunteered by people of this earth who have been selected on the base of certain medical and other standards. These people have the responsibility of going to mars and creating earth-like environment over there for future humans to arrive and find a habitable place. These people in Mars One project will take with them many plant and animal species with them and try to terraform mars to make it more earth-like.

Now let's rewind a bit to the history of humans. From the era where reasoning and Science started to get a good hold in our society. Maybe from the medieval peried when legends like Sir Isaac Newton gave the three laws of motion and Kepler gave the laws of planetary motion. At least from that time, every major human invention was geared up to put man beyond the boundaries of this planet we were born on. Say for example, the invention of light bulb, camera, radio transmission technology, Transistors, and many other I don't have much idea about used in Astronaut suits/space shuttle have been a result of every major invention done in our society throughout history. I mean, space journey has not been a result of one night effort of researchers and engineers. It is a product of overall human inventions throughout time till the day space shuttle is launched beyond orbit.

We boast over these inventions and scientific advancements. Remember what volunteers of Mars One project will be doing on Mars. Growing plants, creating oxygen, breeding animals as well as humans. If this project comes out to be a success, then more such projects will be conduted in an attempt to establish an interplanetary transport system. And it would become a matter of fact that plant species which were previously present on Earth only will now be found in Mars too. The animal and human species which were previously found on Earth will now be found on Mars too.

Mars is a place which is presently void of any life form. But hopefully it will be occupied by the life which was present in its neighbor planet - Earth. Just like that pot hole of water was occupied by life form in the surround land. And we see that pattern to be emerging in a broader scale. So what's its all about? The point which I want to make in this post is that our scientific knowledge and technological development are no co-incidence, nor any elite result of boastful intellect we assume we have unlike other species on this planet.

The existence of human beings needs to be seen by a different perspective. A perspective greater than a species of intellectual might. We have a special place in this cosmos. We inherently are designed by evolution to form a bridge to fulfill the ultimate purpose of nature known as Ecological Succession. Nature wants to expand life form beyond Earth because outer space and planets are vacuum, sterile and seek fulfilment of the purpose of succession of living matter. And we humans are a tool being used for this purpose.

I have been enlightened by this perspective and I have no idea how much more fellow humans hold the same vision. Sadly, instead of boasting over our special place in cosmos, we boast that we have built nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Many of us fight over whose religion is the true while not realizing we are a part of a plan that transcends these puny issues of borders, religion and caste. I took time to write down this post because I think there are people out there who care and who would appreciate their existence on this planet. And maybe, I hope to inspire some of you to spend the remainder of your life in a way that may contribute somehow to this grand plan of nature for which it created all of us. The plan called "Ecological Succession".

Thanks for reading my post. :)