quote:
In modern times, people have brought plants and animals from all over the world to all over the rest of the world, and those species take over their new environment. It isn't really a matter of one species being better or more "advanced" than the other. The old environment of the alien species might give the same resources, but without the competition that it has evolved alongside, so the alien species takes over the new environment easily. An example would be bullfrogs in Australia. Someone brought a couple bullfrogs and they were able to reproduce rapidly and do tremendous damage to the environment there. Another would be kudzu, which is spreading all over the Eastern United States. Native to Japan and China, it isn't so much of a problem there. Over here though, nothing eats it and it spreads everywhere.
OT, just a thought that crosses my mind...
I don't know whether some predator regularly eats chimps and gorillas, but I think we have good evidence that australopiths were eaten by leopards and eagles.
Could it be that our ancestors spread throughout the world after they discover some patch of Africa (or elsewhere) where nothing eats them? I mean, I envision the early dispersal of ancient humans as somthing like the spread of an introduced species, we just spread and multiply and smother everyone else...
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