Possible to engineer an ecosystem with only symbiotic relationships?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the feasibility of engineering an ecosystem composed solely of symbiotic relationships, exploring theoretical and practical implications, particularly in the context of extreme environments like Mars. Participants consider the potential for creating a stable ecosystem devoid of predatory and parasitic interactions.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants propose that with technological and moral advancements, it might be possible to engineer an ecosystem without conflict or pain.
  • Others argue that while engineering such an ecosystem could be feasible, it would not evolve naturally and could eventually revert to include predatory or parasitic relationships.
  • A viewpoint suggests that creating a sterile ecosystem for environments like Mars would be extremely challenging due to the presence of microbes and the potential for evolution to introduce unwanted traits.
  • Some participants express doubt about the long-term stability of a symbiotic ecosystem, citing the inevitability of evolution leading to the occupation of ecological niches by pathogens or predators.
  • Concerns are raised about the practicalities of maintaining such an ecosystem, including the need for a balanced mix of producers, consumers, and decomposers.
  • One participant highlights the issue of "unwanted guests" in ecosystems and the challenges of managing them, suggesting that a complete removal of such organisms might require starting from scratch with a synthesized version of desired life forms.
  • Another perspective emphasizes that while complete exclusion of predation and parasitism may not be realistic, it might be possible to manage their levels to maintain ecosystem stability through careful selection of organisms.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a range of views, with no consensus on the feasibility of creating a purely symbiotic ecosystem. There is acknowledgment of the challenges involved, particularly regarding evolution and the management of unwanted organisms.

Contextual Notes

Participants note the limitations of current understanding regarding the dynamics of engineered ecosystems, including the potential for evolutionary pressures to introduce predation and parasitism over time.

bcrelling
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I was imagining in the future with technological and moral advancement, there might be a drive to engineer an ecosystem without conflict an pain i.e. no predatory or parasitical relationships.

It would only be a natural progression from veganism to wish to stop animals from causing pain to each other.

Do you think it could be possible to engineer a stable ecosystem based purely on symbiotic relationships?
 
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bcrelling said:
I was imagining in the future with technological and moral advancement, there might be a drive to engineer an ecosystem without conflict an pain i.e. no predatory or parasitical relationships.

It would only be a natural progression from veganism to wish to stop animals from causing pain to each other.

Do you think it could be possible to engineer a stable ecosystem based purely on symbiotic relationships?

My guess is

1 you could engineer it

2 it would not evolve by itself

3 after you had engineered it the things you don't want would evolve from it.
 
I was thinking about such harmonic ecosystem - without organisms fighting each other, what is terrible waste of resources, but designed to optimally use them.
It is not just some theoretical considerations - one purpose is bringing life to extreme conditions of e.g. Mars - we shouldn't allow for any pathogens there as they could easily destroy everything. Such eventual ecosystem should be designed bottom-up to be as effective as possible - use only symbiotic relationships.

However, creating such sterile ecosystem would be extremely difficult.
We have microbes everywhere, we have endogenous retroviruses in our DNA ... such artificial ecosystem would have lots of empty ecological niche and even currently symbiotic bacteria could evolve to take such a niche - for example by developing aggressive behavior.
But it could be doable in let say 50 years - choose well (modified) organisms we would like to use in our ecosystem, synthetise their DNA from zero with removed endogeneous retroviruses, also removed genes of proteins which are used for aggressive behavior ... and to be really sure that there is no contamination, do it in the incompatible chiral life version.
 
jarekd said:
I was thinking about such harmonic ecosystem - without organisms fighting each other, what is terrible waste of resources, but designed to optimally use them.
It is not just some theoretical considerations - one purpose is bringing life to extreme conditions of e.g. Mars - we shouldn't allow for any pathogens there as they could easily destroy everything. Such eventual ecosystem should be designed bottom-up to be as effective as possible - use only symbiotic relationships.

Assuming you manage to do all that, and assuming that those lifeforms function just like their real counterparts, I highly doubt that the system would be able to remain that way. Taking an environment where there is differential reproduction, evolution will inevitably take place. And so organisms will begin occupying niches that are not already occupied, and that includes pathogens, predators etc...
 
Sure, it would be a matter of time to evolve to take these niches, but it takes a lot of time - the purpose would be to start life on e.g. Mars, for which a few decades/centuries should be enough for a head start - then it should evolve to be more adapted, robust for these extreme conditions.
Evolution speed depends on the number of organisms, what would be a few orders of magnitude smaller than on Earth. The most dangerous and fastest would be evolution of microbes, but it mainly uses available gene pool - if we would remove proteins used for aggressive behavior from there (e.g. hemolysin, restrictase), evolving them from scratch would take millions of years ... but the only way I see to really remove them from gene pool is to use chiral life.
 
Please keep this discussion focused on the prevalence and possible exclusion of parasitism in ecosystems. Terraforming of Mars by genetically modified organisms is a speculative endeavour and in this context would run counter to the site rules.
 
Ryan_m_b, so please explain how you would like to introduce "exclusion of parasitism" in our ecosystem?
 
I never said I did, I was posting from a moderation standpoint to keep this thread within the rules.
 
To engineer such a sustaining (balanced) ecosystem would require the correct mix of producers, consumers, and decomposers.
 
  • #10
Gannet, the problem are unwanted guests ... and we are fighting with them every day using different kind of poisons ... leading e.g. to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multidrug_tolerance]multidrug[/PLAIN] tolerance[/quote].
There are also lots of other unwanted mechanisms reducing efficiency of ecosystems ... like unimaginable huge number of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposon]transposones in every cell ...

The only, hypothetical way to really get rid of unwanted guests could be starting from over: by synthesizing from zero incompatible version of only wanted life ...
 
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  • #11
jarekd said:
Gannet, the problem are unwanted guests ... and we are fighting with them every day using different kind of poisons ... leading e.g. to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multidrug_tolerance]multidrug[/PLAIN] tolerance
.
There are also lots of other unwanted mechanisms reducing efficiency of ecosystems ... like unimaginable huge number of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposon]transposones in every cell ...

The only, hypothetical way to really get rid of unwanted guests could be starting from over: by synthesizing from zero incompatible version of only wanted life ...[/QUOTE]

I agree jarekd, I have a difficult time of manually or organically keeping unwanted guest out of my lawn and garden. However, I assumed the OP was referring to something like Biosphere 2.
 
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  • #12
I don't think it's realistic to completely get rid of predation/parasitism. Such organisms will arise through evolution. What is more doable is making sure the levels of predation/parasitism never reach a level that undermine the stability of the ecosystem. To do that I think you simply need to choose carefully what organisms you put in your primary secondary waves of ecological succession. Focusing on microbes will make the whole thing easier.
 

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