> At 08:16 PM 18/11/96 -0600, zaimoni@ksu.edu wrote:
> >On Wed, 13 Nov 1996, David McFadzean wrote:
> >> "Doing just fine" does not mean optimal. It is at a disadvantage
> >> because considerable resources are necessary to metamorph midway
> >> through life, resources that could better be spent foraging and
> >> reproducing.
> >
> >?????
> >
> >Compared to what?
>
> Compared to no metamorphing midway through life. The flounder
> occupies the same ecological niche as skates and rays at the
> bottom of the ocean. Skates and rays have a much more efficient
> process of growing up flat.
Cf. earlier comment about preferred environment shift for flounders with age.
I don't think that holds for rays and skates.
> >I would have to know that under a wide range of conditions [hopefully
> >including natural ones], that the direct method provides a higher
> >survival curve to reproductive age/time zone.
>
> We can only speculate by analogy to rays and skates since we don't
> have the technology to "fix" a flounder.
Or we could just *compute* it. [Resources are not practical *yet* for
concrete, but certainly some simple results are possible. Who has
written this up?]
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/ Towards the conversion of data into information....
/
/ Kenneth Boyd
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////