~
“As extinction spreads, some of the lost forms prove to be keystone species, whose disappearance brings down other species and triggers a ripple effect through the demographics of the survivors. The loss of a keystone species is like a drill accidentally striking a powerline. It causes lights to go out all over.” 

Edward O. Wilson The Diversity of Life ~
“Organisms possessing common ancestry rise to dominance, expand their geographic ranges, and split into multiple species. Some of the species acquire novel life cycles and ways of life. The groups they replace retreat to relict status, being diminished in scattershot fashion by competition, disease, shifts in climate, or any other environmental change that serves to clear the way for the newcomers. In time the ascendant group itself stalls and begins to fall back. Its species vanish one by one until they are all gone. Once in a while, in a minority of groups, a lucky species hits upon a new biological trait that allows it to expand and radiate again, reanimating the cycle of dominance on behalf of its phylogenetic kin.” John Alcock: Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary Approach, Third Edition ~
” If a sun compass were the only mechanism available to bees and pigeons their homing abilities should be severely affected by cloudy weather. But both species can forage and navigate successfully on totally overcast days. Thus these species have more than one compass mechanism, one of which may be sensitivity to the weak lines of magnetic force created by the earth’s magnetic field….Both pigeons and honeybees have magnetic compounds concentrated in certain tissues of their bodies; these compounds may be part of a magnetism detector.” ]]> http://beeguardian.org/blog/2013/10/10/hello-world/feed/ 1