Biology and Humanities: Unity and Harmony in Diversity

                                                      Biology and Humanities

Unity and Harmony in Diversity

"It is that range of biodiversity that we must care for - the whole thing - rather than just one or two stars." David Attenborough

Dr Abe V Rotor

Coral Reef Forest in acrylic by the author 2024

Coral reefs are often called "the rain forests of the "oceans" because they are among the richest marine ecosystems in species, productivity, biomass, and distribution.

How unknowingly blind we are to know that on the fringes of land and sea lies a forest
similar in many ways with the ones we know on land - the tropical rainforest, the so-called jungle of Africa, and the coniferous temperate forest called taiga.

And sadly do we know too, that the coral reef, the foundation of the richest marine ecosystem both in vastness and biodiversity, is also dying due to deforestation in like manner our forests are destroyed by exploitation and pollution.

...

 Coelenterates in acrylic by the author 2024

Coelenterates are aquatic invertebrate animals of a phylum that includes jellyfishes, corals, 

and sea anemones, in association with fish, seaweeds and other marine organisms. 

On the intertidal zone where low and high tides take place at interval everyday lies a world unique to most of us because of its unfamiliarity, and often, its invisible features to the naked eyes, and many of its inhabitants are heretofore unknown to us, more so to our young children.

As I painted this piece I imagined myself with snorkel swimming among seaweeds, corals, hydra, jellyfish, sea cucumber,  anemone, seahorse, and the like, which appear in camouflage and mimicry.  It is as if I were in a fairyland - a scenario I painted in abstract style as it appears in this painting.       

Antibiosis in acrylic by the author  2022

Antibiosis is a biological interaction between two or more organisms where one is negatively affected. It inhibits the growth or activity of other organisms in the system with the production of antimicrobial, fungistatic compounds and enzymes.

When I was painting this microscopic scene, I imagined Alexander Fleming, the serendipitous discoverer of the miracle life-saving antibiotic fungus, Penicililum notatum. Truly, in life something happens or is found by chance or luck. Now, how can you interpret this in art?

This is where impressionism and abstract art come in.  It leaves to the viewers things in their own interpretation - even those that do not exist in reality.  Can you decipher the disease-causing  bacterium  being devoured by the Penicillium? Imagine in this painting the presence of other microscopic organisms belonging to the realms of Mycophyta and Protista.

Deadwood mushrooms specimen against a mural of nature by the author 2020

A  colony of mushrooms growing like shelves around a dead branch in association with other saprophytes. Saprophytes are nature's scavengers as they feed on dead or decaying matter, thus keeping the environment orderly and clean.

 

It is adventure on the field, under the trees, along river banks, and other natural features of the landscape where we communicate with the Creator.  In this particular case, with organisms in the final stage of their lives, some in advance state whereby their organic compounds are reverted into inorganic forms.

Here compounds are broken into elements.  It's Nature at work with little or no intervention of man at all.  True to the nature of a cycle, its beginning and end, are closely linked, setting the conditions of subsequent cycles. Bacteria, protists, mycophyta (fungi) are Nature's agents of this phenomenon, earning their status as beneficial organisms.  

 Arboreal Niche in acrylic by the author 2022

A niche defines the role and position a species plays in its environment. It describes 

how a species responds to and alters the distribution of resources and competitors. 

Trees talk, sing, whisper, groan, sigh, and the like, which are unique in their own ways.  But if you love nature you are truly a part of their world.  Birds build nests and sing  lullaby.  Crickets play violin, frogs are Caruso; prop roots gongs, passing breeze love notes, fireflies eyes in the night

These make life beautiful, happy, meaningful.  Pick up a brush and paint. Arrange some notes into a melody and play it with the flute.   Follow the rhyme and rhythm of the river reaching out to the sea.  

Forest Litter in acrylic by the author 2023

Forest litter comprises of the accumulated layers of organic debris on the forest floor that consists of dead plant material, such as leaves, twigs, bark, flowers, and fruits. It is rich in organic matter and minerals. 

How do you define waste? In pre-industrial era, waste is mainly the by-product of Nature, meaning, materials left behind by a main product.  Rice hull or Ipa for example is a by-product of milling, in the same way peelings are leftover in the kitchen.

In nature dead leaves are residues of photosynthesis, so with hay and stovers.. Under the trees waste pile up  layer after layer into a litter of leaves, branches, earthworm castings, wildlife droppings.  These become compost, and compost is fertilizer the trees use again as they grow, produce fruits, wood, oil, resin and other materials 

This is an interesting subject of art in situ, thus on-the-spot painting would be the best approach to capture this scenery.  The artist in us may expand through imagination the process over and above science and technology.  The artist reaches out into the mystery of Creation.  Here art becomes an expression of reverence and thanksgiving, a prayer in itself.  

Mycelia in acrylic by the author 2022

Mycelium (pl, mycelia) is a root-like structure of a fungus consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae. Its normal form is that of branched, slender, entangled, anastomosing, hyaline threads. Fungal colonies composed of mycelium are found in and on soil and many other substrates.

What you can't see is hard to believe, they say. Yet we believe in many invisible things.

The lens unveils the world of the minutiae, living and non-living, and their mysterious connections, often the subject of magic and superstition. Wonder how thunder and lightning produce mushrooms as old folk would tell us.

Scientists trace the mushroom as the visible stage of a mass of microscopic mycelia, the vegetative stage of the organism. Artists bring forth on canvas and screen their  versions of this microscopic world, real and imaginary.  They connect reality and fantasy, unless they are instructed to adhere to scientific facts. Otherwise art is an expression of freedom, a kind of theory out of the artist's interpretation.    

                                               Juvenile Volvox in acrylic by the author, 2000

Volvox species can be monoecious or dioecious. Male colonies release numerous sperm packets, while in female colonies single cells enlarge to become oogametes, or eggs.

Multicolored Volvox? In nature Volvox is monochromatic, green, sparkling in bright light, its spiked cover making it appear alien by our standards of a living organism. Thus, Volvox is a good subject of art and microphotography.  And to the fertile mind, a seventh wonder of the world in microcosm.  

I like the oneness and unity of a Volvox colony, a biological design for survival in number and sharing of space and resources, a evolutionary tool of cooperation, though  ultimately ending up in rigid competition, illustrating Darwin's "survival of the fittest" in a colony. Would you like to peep into the microscope and paint the Volvox in fantasia? ~