World needs death and decay claims an article is ScienceDaily 12 September 2018 about a study published in Ecological Monographs 11 September 2018, doi: 10.1002/ecm.1331.
When animals and plants die there is a need for their remains to be broken down and decomposed so that nutrients and other substances are returned to the earth to be used again. These processes are carried out by a large variety of organisms ranging from scavenging birds and animals, to small invertebrates, to fungi and microbes.
In 2013 Eric Benbow, a forensic entomologist and microbial ecologist at Michigan State University, proposed the term “necrobiome” for the communities of organisms involved in this process. Benbow and colleagues have now carried out a survey of decomposition processes in many situations ranging from rotting seaweed to cleaning up after the catastrophic death of herds of large mammals. They note that there are different processes involved in decomposition, but they claim the concept of the “necrobiome” will help scientists bring together different aspects of the study of ecology, i.e. how living things interact in particular environments.
According to Benbow, “Decomposer communities are critical” and a proper understanding of the necrobiome will enable scientists to better understand “nutrient recycling, gene flow, population dynamics and other ecosystem processes at the frontier of ecological research.”
There are also practical applications such as using insects to breakdown plant waste from industrial processes such as distilling, and then using the insects to make animal feed, or in some cultures, human food. According to ScienceDaily, an understanding of the necrobiome would “also promote the importance of death in ecosystems”.
Editorial Comment: Have you ever realised that an efficient decomposition cycle would have to exist in the very good world described in Genesis 1 and 2 before there was any biological death for animals and man? Mankind and animals were originally created to eat plants, and there was no struggle, violence, disease or death.
So, think about the role of recycling decomposers in a perfect world without death. There would be a need for recycling plant matter, e.g. fallen leaves and flower petals, shed bark, remains of partly eaten fruit, etc. There would also be a need for breaking down animal derived matter such as droppings, shed feathers and hair. Therefore, in the very good world there would be thriving active communities of worms, insects and other small invertebrates, fungi, and microbes, all working to recycle nutrients and other substances.
However, because there was no death of animals or humans, it would not be appropriate to call them the “necrobiome”, i.e. the biome of death. They only became the “necrobiome” after death entered the world following man’s sin and God’s judgement. As the environment degenerated the organisms in the already functioning recycling system extended their activities to working on dead animals, therefore becoming the present day necrobiome, and soon some animals and birds became scavengers and joined the necrobiome.
So, Eric Benbow is correct – decomposer communities are essential, and always have been but not because of any evolutionary kill and be killed history of planet earth. Any theistic evolutionists who use the observation that death is present now and therefore always has been to prop up their claim that God used evolution to create had better beware – your god is a liar with a capital L, and there is only one who has been a Liar from the beginning and that is Satan. It is time to acknowledge that the Truthful God’s good creation trumps any foolishness of man about the evolution of life and death!
For further information on this topic see the article Questions of Life and Death here.
Also see also the questions:
ANIMAL DEATH? Dr Lane Craig says animals died before Adam’s sin. Is this correct? Answer here.
DEATH: Genesis doesn’t explicitly state there was no animal death before the Fall. Why do you insist on it? Answer here.
POPULATION: If animals didn’t die before Adam sinned, wouldn’t the world have become overpopulated? Answer here.
Evidence News vol. 18 No.14
3 October 2018
Creation Research Australia
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