Toxic Overload?

Abstract

The final chapter of this book is truly a work in progress. How will life’s toxic defense mechanisms respond to industrial age chemicals? We are the products of an ancestral line that survived the sun’s intense ultraviolet light, the earth’s metals, the poisons of plants and animals, and even life’s own renegade cells. Whether one takes the long view of evolution or a contemporary view, naturally occurring chemicals have profoundly influenced evolution. As a result, our lives depend on redundant detoxification systems, membranes studded with protein pumps, filter-like organs, and layers of protective skin. Yet in today’s industrialized world, these defenses are challenged in ways unlike any in the past. The opportunity for an evolutionary mismatch is not a matter of if, but when.

Complex morphological or life history traits that depend on many generations are less likely to evolve quickly in small-population, long-generation species. These are the species, including most of the large animals and plants, that are most at risk of extinction due to poor ability to adapt evolutionarily to global change.

Stephen Palumbi