I just read the article by Mark Winston in the New York Times (July 15, 2014) in which he talks about the “thousand little cuts” suffered by honeybees which has led to the catastrophic decline of these insects. (The article is reproduced at the end of this blog.) I had been thinking about synergy and this seems to fit right in.
Synergy means the interaction of two (or more) things that produce an overall effect that’s greater than – or different from – the sum of the individual effects. In other words, we cannot predict the whole simply by looking at the parts. Even so, we are challenged to understand and predict the impacts that contaminants have on communities – when understanding the effect of a single contaminant on a single organism is daunting. There are almost unlimited variables that impact any situation.
The EPA tests chemicals for adverse health…
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