Eons of coevolution of Earth and life seem to have favoured ecological relationships that enhanced the planet’s habitability, endowing it with features resembling those of a living organism, including a capacity for self-regulation, albeit constrained. To survive in the world, living organisms must convert energy and matter from one form to another, sense their environment, and move through the world. Understanding living systems requires us to understand how information flows across many scales, from single molecules to groups of organisms. From harnessing energy dissipation for more reliable information transmission on the molecular scale to using novel network dynamics as a neural code in the brain, life has found unexpected realizations to survive and evolve.
Our living planet, the dynamic web of organisms and ecosystems, between organisms and several unique aspects of Earth – atmosphere, hospitable environment, long-term climate variations, liquid water, gravitation, natural greenhouse effect, plate tectonics, and magnetic field – is connected with the Solar System and the whole Universe. The conditions that make the Earth temperature generally suitable for organisms, thus determining the planet’s thermal habitability, is connected with Earth’s spin, tilt and shape of its orbit around the sun that affects the amount of solar radiation flux reaching the Earth’s surface depending on latitude, time of day and time of year. Small changes in the angle of Earth’s tilt, spin and orbit cause changes in climate over a span of 10,000 to 100,000 years (and are not causing climate change today). The formation of the Earth-Moon system 4.5 billion years ago and the resulting presence of the Moon plays a role in the stability of the earth’s axis of rotation. The gravitational pull of the moon helps to keep the tilt of Earth’s axis fairly stable, which is important for maintaining a steady climate on our planet. Without the moon, the tilt of Earth’s axis would wobble much more, which could cause extreme changes in climate. Atmospheric circulation, along with ocean circulation, distributes heat across the entire surface of the Earth.
Most of the Earth water, which is essential to organisms, may have been brought from far away in the Solar System, by impacts between protoplanets during the formation of Earth, and/or later by asteroids and comets. Also, chemical elements such as carbon were forged in faraway stars billions of years before the formation of the Sun and Earth.
An important aspect of the Earth System is the continuous exchange of matter, energy and information among the hydrosphere, geosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, atmosphere, and even the magnetosphere. These speres influence and interact with the interdependent physical, chemical, and biological processes; the interactions and responses, through fluctuations and force of the planet’s natural cycles carbon, water, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur and other cycles and deep earth processes. Earth’s spheres have coevolved over time, influencing each other’s stability trajectory and ultimately keeping our planet habitable for the last 4 billion years. Among the numerous events that have controlled the life-planet trajectory (e.g., the Moon forming impact, onset of plate tectonic, evolution of land plants), the change in planetary surface redox following the Great Oxidation Event conditions has had the greatest impact, profoundly influencing the mineralogy, geochemistry and biology of Earth. Earth is a self-regulating whole of organic and inorganic matter, operating as a close unity by means of a feedback system.
Primarily, life is a process. All living agents are constituted by elements that underlie physics and chemistry. One of the most intriguing aspects of life is the ability of biological systems to spontaneously form ordered structures and patterns without external guidance. This self-organization is a fundamental principle that makes the complexity of life possible. It shows how simple physical and chemical interactions can lead to the emergence of complex and organized biological structures. Living systems use energy to drive biochemical reactions and store and regulate information through molecules such as DNA and RNA. Feedback mechanisms are crucial for maintaining homeostasis and responding to environmental changes. This highlights the role of energy transfer and information flows in the evolution and adaptation of organisms. It shows how biological systems are optimized not only physically and chemically, but also informationally and energetically to survive and adapt to changing conditions.
Thermodynamics plays a crucial role in biological systems, especially in how they process energy and organize themselves. Biological systems are open systems that absorb and process energy to sustain themselves. They remain far from thermodynamic equilibrium by continuously exchanging energy and matter with their surroundings and expelling excess entropy. Similar to physical, biological systems can spontaneously exhibit order through energy exchange with their environment. This means that living organisms can organize and evolve without an external guiding force, simply through energy gradients that shape their structure. Living organisms distinguish themselves from other dissipative structures because they can actively sustain and reproduce themselves. This process, known as autopoiesis, enables biological systems to regenerate themselves through a circular exchange of energy and matter.
This how biological -living- systems function and why they can maintain order and complexity despite the laws of thermodynamics.
The history of microbial life on the early Earth is closely linked to the history of the oceans, land and atmosphere, which is largely reflected in the evolution of planetary oxygenation and its impact on the biosphere. With the emergence and expansion of molecular oxygen (O2) production by photosynthetic cyanobacteria and the concomitant increases in the availability of O2, a vastly wider array of microbial niches emerged. Abundant supplies of varied oxidants and nutrients fuelled the diversification and proliferation of both aerobic and anaerobic microbial metabolisms. At the same time, microorganisms challenged or excluded by O2 were forced to adapt to an evolving global redox landscape marked by protracted oxygenation, which progressed from surface oceans to the atmosphere.
The complexity of ecosystems, the process by which life creates conditions conducive to life seems to be so much more symbiotic and symphonic all together, optimizing the whole system than it is about competing individuals one against the other. If you understand life as a network, then biodiversity means higher complexity of the network, more connections. Since this living network is a network of processes of metabolic, cognitive processes and ecological processes, every new connection can be seen as information and cooperation. Connections are cooperations and greater diversity means more cooperation.
Random mutations are only part of evolution. Bacteria can mutate very fast and multiply very fast, but they have another way of changing the genome. That is by a horizontal gene transfer. They trade genes. They spill out. The bacterium will in day to day, in its day-to-day life, it will spill out a certain proportion of its genes and other bacteria will absorb it. There’s a constant trading of genes to the extent that some microbiologists think that one should not talk about species of bacteria, because the genome is so fluid and always changing that you can’t define species. The third avenue of evolution is something that is symbiosis. There are two organisms living in close proximity to the extent that they ended up completely, depending on one another and forming a new organism. So you have random mutation, gene trading and symbiogenesis.
Symbiotic relationships are an important component of life. Symbioses occur within and across all scales of life, from microbial to macro-faunal systems. Symbiosis is the main rule in nature and the presence of organisms living symbiotically and communicating with each other is the structural base of evolutive success and a new level of hierarchical complexity organization in the web of life. Symbiosis is also the way through which the acquisition of new genomes and new metabolic capacities occur, making possible the evolutive construction of biological organisms. Symbiosis has also played a central role in the pre-biotic evolution, in the emergency and evolution of eukaryotes, in the origin of land plants, and in a myriad of adaptive evolutionary innovations. It is the main rule in nature, and the main evolutionary mechanism in the establishment and maintenance of biomes, as well as the foundation of biodiversity.
The separation between living and nonliving is not a fundamental difference of nature between them, but a difference in the amount of energy and complexity of information that is being integrated, organized, stored, transformed and exchanged at any single moment. What separates living from nonliving is only the limit of our own awareness of these interactions.
Human impact the world around us now more than ever. The impact is so significant that it is argued by many scientists that we as a species have given rise to a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene, meaning ‘the recent age of man’ Unfortunately, this ‘age of man’ is by no means a golden age. The Anthropocene has entailed not only ecological crises and problems in our time but has also irrevocably changed conditions on earth in a way that will continue to affect different ecosystems and spheres on earth – as well as humankind itself – in a negative way, long into a future that is so distant it may seem almost impossible to grasp. life. Planetary distress is manifest by uncertainty, unpredictability, genuine chaos, and relentless change in global warming, erratic weather, acidifying oceans, disease pandemics, habitat change, species endangerment and extinction, bioaccumulation of toxins, resource exploitation, dramatically shifting the composition of ecological communities, effects on the water and nutrient cycles, atmospheric and ocean circulation, precipitation, changes in the area and location of snow and ice can alter air temperatures, change sea level and even affect ocean currents worldwide……. the displacement of deep-rooted native plants, fungi reduce soil diversity, stability and water retention, undermining ecosystem functions and the continuing overwhelming physical impact of exponentially expanding human development. Moreover, the
Earth’s distress has its correlates in human physical and mental distress. We desperately need to rethink humanity’s relationship with nature, moving away from a dominance-based approach towards one of harmony and respect. To understand that Earth functions as a self-regulating, living system. A transition towards the interconnectedness of human consciousness, and nature, emphasizing the importance of a perspective that recognizes the intrinsic value of all living beings, beyond their utility to humans. To adopt a holistic view of life, embracing ecological ethics and regenerative bioregional practices that honour the complexity and interdependence of Earth’s ecosystems. A shift from exploitation and dominance to a harmonious and respectful relationship with the natural world.
This places humanity in opposition to nature, life itself, viewing nature as a resource to be used rather than a living system with intrinsic value. This mindset perpetuates the idea that Earth Systems issues are external problems rather than reflections of human behaviour and psychological detachment.