The emergence of deadly insects through the cracks in the fractals
“Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses, especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
― Leonardo da Vinci
Nature’s timing
Whatever happens, this whole universe has to go through time; the universe can’t ignore it. Anyhow, using that time rhythmically makes the action most successful. Like, rhythmic movement of Messi’s dribble towards the goal or the rhythmic word delivery of Eminem. These are just only two examples. Somehow, all these artificial rhythmic movements are mathematically definable — for instance, the scales of music notations. Similarly, nature has its unique rhythm, which human can’t define mathematically. Definitions always lead towards irrational numbers. Such as π, the golden ratio, and other mathematics behind all the fractals of nature. Fractals are some distinctive elements in nature’s rhythmic design, which creates the basic system of the whole universe to be naturally operational.
Fractals of nature
Fractals and patterns are everywhere, i.e., this whole universe is designed and structured in various types of fractals and patterns; our planet isn’t an exception. But Earth is a unique place, away from remaining. It is the only place, and human knows something more than other planetary systems. Our planet has various types of fractal geometry in its nature. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the study of fractals is that there are fractal patterns everywhere around us. Even if you don’t think you know anything at all about fractals yet, you already do because you’ve grown up in a world full of fractals. We regularly see it in our natural environment. Like; spiral design structure in flower, branching patterns in a tree or its root, Tessellation in beehive or water drainage patterns in the land, and more. Thus, fractal geometry has been hailed as the geometry of nature.
Many scholars study these patterns and fractals for a long time. Aristotle, Paiethagaros, Febbinachi, Kepler and DaVinci are some of them. Significant events like Leonardo da Vinci instructed his apprentices to study the exquisite landscapes formed by the mould stains on his studio walls explains how crucial these studies were in their success. Such studies about fractals in nature directed humans to achieve higher levels of knowledge about it. Most of the time, it’s used in geometry, computer science, soil science, architecture and been researched in various fields. However, interest in fractals didn’t originate with the application in mind. It’s an enigma in nature still been studied.
Understanding this puzzle would be a significant breakthrough for human beings. These fractals are categorized into some groups from the studies that have been done until now, such as; symmetries, branching, spirals, meanders, waves, foams, tessellations, cracks and stripes. These fractals are more crucial for the efficient functions of this whole world, the same importance as blood vessels (branching fractal) for the human body. However, this article is focused on the branching fractal that is related to the land.
The branching fractals
Branching fractals are primarily used to transform materials in nature. Basically, wherever fluids are concerned, it flows through branching fractals. Most of the time, these are growing natural designs. As mentioned earlier, blood vessels, tree roots, tree branches, inland water flow are examples of the branching fractal mechanisms. Here, every link counts because each branch has its unique duty for the natural workflows. The below image shows the part of the inland water flow of the Amazon rainforest. This inland water flow is generally known as a drainage system.
In geomorphology, drainage systems, also known as river systems, are the patterns formed by the runlets, streams, headstreams, rivers, and lakes in a particular drainage basin. These watercourses have a unique tendency when they flow, known as a meander. It is produced by a stream or river swinging from side to side as it flows across its floodplain or shifts its channel within a valley. This tendency in the watercourse creates a unique environment and more important in spreading the ecological essence throughout its basin, and this activity creates the fractal design. Thus, these branching fractals are possible when in comprise a floodplain or a catchment area to make this natural dance.
Since basically, these fractals are a composition of branching systems, sub-branches are just as crucial as main branches in this system. Because each branch has its unique duty for the workflow of the whole system, a single impact on any unit could affect all other branches; however, it can significantly affect the surrounding environment of the particular branch. Urban rivers and streams are great examples of this. In fact, these types of destructions are common in the urban and suburban areas of developing countries.
Kelani River and its surroundings at Colombo, the Mid canal, and its environs at Kandy are significant examples of degraded environments in Sri Lanka caused by the impacts of a particular fractal branch.
Although climate change is known to contribute to these impacts, human activity around the affected branch is the leading cause for the destructions of these drainage systems. The water received by the rainfall is first collected in the basins and reaches the sea through runlets, streams and rivers through unique fractal designs on the land. During this natural process, vital activities for the survival of the living organisms take places, such as land cleansing and the transformation of nutrients. But cracks in these fractals of the drainage system can have several impacts on our environment and community. Today’s various deadly diseases and psychologically stressed communities around such cracked environments are the best examples of that.
The emergence
When the rain comes down, it brings prosperity to the world to led life to blossom. Thus, the water needed for growth on land is obtained worldwide through rainfall and snowfall, and Monsoons are significant in the tropics.
When it comes to tropical countries like Sri Lanka, the island receives water from two main monsoon seasons. The season from November to February is dryer as it flows from the Indian landmass to the northeast of Sri Lanka. But from March to October, the seasonal condition is cooling the country as it comes from the Indian Ocean to the southwest of Sri Lanka.
Water obtained by these seasons contributes significantly to the growth of organisms and their reproduction on flowing and still water in various scales of water bodies. Among these water bodies in the tropics, rainwater stagnation sites are the habitats of tiny insects known as mosquitoes. These insects have rapid reproduction, reaches the mature stage in 10 days. The mosquitoes reproduced in the pure stagnated water are Dengue (Zika and chikungunya) diseases vectors. The primary mosquito vectors of dengue breeds in and around human habitation, and their eggs can remain dry for months and hatch when in contact with water. Bites of virus-infected insects are known to spread these diseases. Once a person is infected, this virus circulates in the blood for 2–7 days; simultaneously, the person develops a fever. The following 24–48 hours of the critical stage can be lethal; proper medical care is needed to avoid complications and risk of death. This disease has been known to humankind for centuries. Around the 1st century, eastern scholars first wrote about this disease in Chinese medicine, but the effects of the disease are ubiquitous worldwide for a long time. Dengue is found in tropical and sub-tropical climates like Sri Lanka, mostly in urban and semi-urban areas. Even rural areas are beginning to be affected in some countries. The global incidences of Dengue have grown dramatically in recent decades. About half of the world’s population is now at risk. There are an estimated 390 million infections each year.
In search of solutions
Rainy seasons brings not only the needed water to the life harbour but also an increase in mosquitoes and, that is Dengue.
The last major outbreak of Dengue that gripped the Sri Lanka was recorded in 2017, with a massive 186,100 people contracting the disease in that particular year. Sri Lanka encounters a significant number of dengue cases each year for a couple of decades.
Thus, several actors, including Ministries of Health, Indigenous Medicine, the Dengue Control Units and many other local and international actors, invest in protecting communities worldwide. Most of the time, the purpose of such organizations is to eradicate the reproduction sites and habitats of these mosquitoes. But the prevalence remains unchanged in many places.
The ecology
Ecology is a study of relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment; it seeks to understand the vital connections between plants and animals and the world around them, known as ecosystems. Every organism has its unique contribution to sustaining a vibrant ecosystem. These systems define the particular organisms’ habitats, niches, community, populations, and more. All these are connected with each other. A population will grow exponentially as long as the environment experienced by all individuals in the population remains constant. Limits on population growth include food supply, space, and complex interactions with other physical and biological factors (including other species). After an initial period of exponential growth, a population will encounter a limiting factor that will cause exponential growth to stop. Usually, the environment is the ultimate cause of population stabilization; this process naturally occurs, for instance, Cheetahs limiting the population of the deer in Africa. This basic concept is taught in our schools as the food chains and webs.
However, food is only one factor among several other population-limiting factors, and those factors are categorized as biotic and abiotic. Biotic factors describe the connection between the particular population and other living components, such as the above example of cheetahs and deer. Abiotic factors are the links among the specific population and the non-living (physical and chemical) elements in their environment. For instance, Snails, for example, cannot reproduce successfully in an environment low in calcium, no matter how much food they have in their environment because they need this mineral for shell growth.
The main biotic factors that affect population growth include:
- Food: The population growth and decline of species depend on the amount of their food availability.
- Predators: As a prey population becomes large, it becomes easier for predators to find prey. If the number of predators suddenly falls, the prey species might increase in number exceptionally quickly.
- Competitors: Other organisms may require the same resources from the environment and reduce the growth of a population. For instance, all plants compete for light. Competition for territory and mates can drastically reduce the development of individual organisms.
- Parasites: These may cause disease and slow down the growth and reproductive rate of organisms within a population.
Important abiotic factors affecting population growth include:
- Temperature: Higher temperatures speed up enzyme-catalyzed reactions and increase growth.
- Oxygen availability: Affects the rate of energy production by respiration.
- Light availability: For photosynthesis, light may also control breeding cycles in animals and plants.
- Toxins and pollutants: This can reduce tissue growth by the presence of, for example, Sulphur dioxide, and reproductive success may be affected by contaminants such as estrogen-like substances.
Ecology of mosquito
When it comes to mosquitoes, that’s all about limiting or eradicating the mosquito population to get rid of these deadly disease vectors away from human beings. But, despite the use of many artificial population limiting factors, they do not significantly affect populations. The annual number of patients over the past decade ensure this. If considering the environmental factors to determine the population growth, most of the important abiotic factors are at the macro-level, so making changes in these factors to eradicate the particular population or handling them without harming other organisms and their environment is still far away from human thinking. Though the only abiotic factor that has been used to limit the population is the toxins and pollutants factors, the results of applications are still not on an appreciable level, but microbiologists are still studying it. The only way to limit the mosquito population is by maintaining and managing the biotic factors, including their food, competitors, parasites, and predators. These are the unique and practically possible things that could be effectively handled in the environmental population limiting factors.
Available food for organisms always affects the population. It’s a pivotal survival need for any organisms. Regarding mosquitoes, all adults feed on the nectar or honeydew of plants to get sugar, which provides enough nourishment for both males and females to live, but to create eggs, females need protein, which they get from the blood of animals. Protecting all animals from mosquito bites can prevent them from getting the protein they need, but it’s not possible. At the same time, it is challenging to reduce the required sugars and nutrients for the survival of the mosquitoes. Still, we can reduce food availability for the mosquitoes by increasing the demand for their food needs. Expanding the population of bees, bugs, and other consumers of nectar or honeydew could reduce the required sugars and nutrients for mosquitoes. I.e., reducing the population by increasing the number of competitors for foods available is one way. Thus, a vibrant ecosystem with more pollinator leads to less mosquito population. Also, Population growth can be reduced and slow down by parasites as well. But it’s still been studied by scientists.
Mosquito hawks
Predators range in size from small insects to large whales in our environment. They are more effective in decreasing the population growth, even when the amount of available food is higher for preys. Predators play a vital role in a healthy ecosystem. They remove the vulnerable target, such as the old, injured, sick, or very young, leaving more food for the survival and success of healthy prey animals. By controlling the size of prey populations, predators help slow down the spread of disease. Predators will catch healthy prey when they can, but seeing sick or injured animals help the formation of healthier prey populations because only the fittest animals survive and can reproduce.
Some several insects and animals can be considered mosquito predators. Some feed on adult mosquitoes, but many feed on mosquito larvae. Birds, frogs, tadpoles, fish, toads, salamanders, spiders, turtles, and many insects play vital roles in keeping the mosquito population at the bay level. For instance, some creatures like the small brown bat can catch up to 600 mosquitoes in just one hour.
Dragonflies are excellent hunters with hawk-like vision. They feed on many different types of insects, especially the ones found around and in water. Since mosquitoes need water to breed successfully, they are a favourite meal of the dragonflies. They have no problem catching these easy targets since dragonflies can zip around at speeds between 25 and 30 miles per hour, snatching their prey right out of mid-air. They also feed on mosquito larvae, especially during the immature stages of the dragonfly life cycle. The term Mosquito hawks are closely applied to dragonflies, crane flies and damselflies. As mentioned above, dragonflies are notorious mosquito predators, and Damselflies look like a smaller, slimmer version of dragonflies and have the same taste for mosquitoes as their larger cousins. These two arthropods apart by their flight patterns; Dragonflies are consequential and direct in their flight, making them cover a larger area while damselflies flutter about. Anyhow, all these predators have a vital role in maintaining the mosquito population.
Branching fractals and Mosquitos
Life begins with water; it’s a natural law and a key factor for rich ecosystems. However, water bodies in motion give immense involvement rather than static water sources. Therefore, water that runs through fractals in the natural drainage system has a vital role in creating sustainable environments, which lead to productive and healthy ecosystems. As mentioned earlier, water flowing in the landscape forms such efficient drainage systems that include runlets, streams, headstreams, rivers.
Anyhow, the correlations between the population of mosquitoes and the fractal design of natural drainage system are fascinating. Mosquitoes consistently reproduce in stagnated water; neither their eggs nor their larvae can not survive in the flowing water. Natural drainage patterns never directly impact the mosquito population, but these patterns have many direct impacts on predators of mosquitoes. Healthy water bodies always threw biodiversity by enhancing the vegetation in the banks and further away. Most of the time, these are the ecological harbours to spread the essence of ecosystems to their surrounding landscapes. These water bodies are the most desirable habits for all the mosquito predators mentioned above, from rivers to small runlets. Dragonfly is the best example of this scenario. Comparing the life cycle of these two insects can reveal many more things.
Both begin their lives in the water, but most of the time state of the water differs. Mosquitoes lay eggs in motionless water bodies on different scales; these water bodies and their environment make the larvae survive easily. They burn less energy to outlive in their environment. It causes rapid growth in larvae and makes them fully grown adult mosquitos in days. At the same time, Dragonflies lay eggs in or near water, mostly on plants around. Some species go under the water to lay their eggs on a suitable surface. When the eggs hatch, it turns into nymphs and starts the life in the water. It can even survive in the running water. In this period, they become a good predator, even before adulthood. Their habitats and their environment train them harder for their maturity. Nymph desired habitat is the shallow areas where water turbulence is high, in water bodies like rivers, streams, headstreams and runlets. This environment provides high nutrients and trains them physically, which tones their body. That makes dragonflies stronger to cover a broad territory when they are fully grown.
Primarily State of biotic, abiotic factors and the status of the water bodies determine the survival of all mosquito Hawks. When the wind brings clouds full of nutrients and minerals from dusty desert sand around the world and rain over the land below, it passes into the soil and the roots of the trees and finally collected in the basins. These water bodies are rich in nutrients which is travel through the fractal designs of landforms. It provides healthier and thriving ecosystems with support from vegetation in and around water banks. These water bodies are the ecological hubs for complex and unique habitats for many other mosquito predators apart from mosquito hawks, such as birds, bats, fishes, frogs, tadpoles and many others. Water moving through branching fractals is pivotal for such habitats to sustain rather than the water cruising through the artificial straight water canals because nature knows what is essential and what isn’t.
Current status
The human population is snowballing in the world because of advancement in our modern technologies and medical industry. Simultaneously, pollution and its causes are growing even faster than the population. Currently, it has caused heavy disasters in our environment. Improper land use is the primordial factor for such disasters, and it’s apparent worldwide. Our settlements have become more complicated and worst compared to our ancestor’s. They focused on the environment where they settled and didn’t know the technical terms like ecosystem services or some other as we know now. Still, they had subtle approaches towards a sustainable lifestyle. Unfortunately, modern man knows plenty of technical terms, but his only concern is his shelters, not the environment. Our urban or suburban settlements are staunch as the building components, but it’s weak as the whole environment. When the ancestors settled in water banks, they had a sacred connection with the water bodies because they knew what those bodies could provide and how they should honour those in return. For instance, even urinating on water bodies was prohibited in many ancient cultures around the world. But water body is envisaged just as a wastewater disposal canal in most of our modern settlements. As mentioned earlier, natural water bodies are very efficient in transforming nutrient to the whole landscape it surrounds, especially the flowing water sources. This natural system has been helping humankind for a long time in various ways, including agriculture and other primary needs. Still, the use of inorganic fertilizer in recent times has reduced that efficiency. These are just apparent indirect causes for the destruction of these water bodies. Most of the time, such activities are inevitable due to the increase in our population; however, our modern professionals could solve this in sustainable ways. But the actual destruction occurs when human activities directly interpenetrate in these water systems, or in other words encroaching or altering the natural water bodies and their catchment. These activities have a considerable contribution to the less efficiency of these fractal bodies. Because these fractal bodies are not just about the water bodies, it is a compact system that includes the catchment area and several other components. Ecological essence still could be found in polluted water bodies when it has an area of the catchment, but this won’t be observed in water bodies with no catchments. Our walls and land retaining structures are solid, but natural water bodies lose their efficiency when those structures remorselessly marginalize the natural fractal designs. Although large water bodies like rivers are less affected by such destructions, water bodies smaller than rivers that produce essential organisms such as mosquito hawks are greatly affected.
Way forward
Unfortunately, the world is moving toward degeneration, even after we have identified that. Thus, every day the modern world is facing various disasters knowingly or unknowingly. Not because we are invading the water bodies, but we are interpenetrating every natural system that is crucial for survival. Nature always has a way to balance the imbalance when it occurs; it is a law. When there is something lacks, it knows how to fill that gap and vice versa. When humankind creates such gaps, nature originates various diseases, natural disasters, and other misfortunes to balance or stabilise. Unfortunately, this process affects entire living things in the environment, even the human’s social well-being. The global pandemic is the best example of such circumstances. We refuse to realise that degeneracies we mount in our environment cause most of our depressions; breaking the fractals is only one cause among them.
Even though we are on the verge of our destruction, it is still possible to find solutions to these breakdowns. Firstly every one of us should understand the importance of the context we live in, every single component of our environment. Since modern human has mastered in various individual studies, those aren’t reflecting as a whole. Thus humankind needs to understand the diversity of their environment. Unfortunately, our educational systems are based on subjects that only focus on human beings, but they should be focused on both the environment and human being. We’ve identified mathematics and science as crucial for primary education but not environmental science. When it comes to our ancestors, they were the elites of the environment. They had their unique way of knowledge to live a sustainable lifestyle that we currently identified as traditional knowledge. Most of the identified nature-based solutions for the destructions have already used by our ancestors. For instance, the Satoyama, the rice garden of Japan, has more than 4000 years of history and the concept of tank villages ancestral Sri Lanka, which has created a most sustainable artificial system punctuated among natural environments. Therefore, embracing such knowledge would be the solution, but our government has a prominent role in implementing such solutions. However, it is a matter of great concern that our rulers are pushing for a dam only after the floods. They introduce new policies for water bodies like rivers after it has been polluted. But, they should identify potential areas and introduce new policies or update the existing policies before that particular area is affected. For instance, as mentioned above, we have policies for polluted rivers, but there aren’t any effective policies to the streams or other flowing water sources or any of their catchments which isn’t wholly impure yet. Ecological essence will be not renaissance unless we conserve the catchments and the water sources. Thus, we must create policies towards them as soon as possible to stop further destruction. Until then, humankind would face disasters as the environment fill the gaps created by humanity.
As mentioned before, nature designs are always beautiful and highly beneficial and crucial for all living things. Nature’s fractal designs are one of them which we all surrounded. These fractals are diverse, in various forms, like branching fractals. These are the arts that have life—understanding the science behind such art would a breakthrough for humankind.
“Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses, especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
― Leonardo da Vinci
