Arctotheca populifolia in the sand

Arctotheca populifolia branches spread here on sand at Tietiesbaai, also known as the Cape Columbine Nature Reserve. The whiter these leaves, the younger they are; the older the less hairy and darker as more of the bare blades are revealed.

The sea pumpkin, as this Arctotheca pioneer plant is commonly known, copes in bare dune sand where few other flowering species venture. Their yellow daisies have many similarly flowering relatives among annual and perennial herbs, even among shrubs and trees in South Africa and worldwide; all adapted to particular sets of growing conditions.

In this way some larger and older plant families, like the Asteraceae, have comparatively secure positions, their bets hedged via multiple representatives in unlike survival niches. Hard times presenting specific challenges may wipe out certain types of living things on a large scale, while big families comprising species representing a range of unlike characteristics are less likely to be eradicated completely.

The large extinctions of living species of the past obliterated many, sometimes a majority of all the species extant in the preceding period. This left the challenge to a minority of survivor species and families to rebuild biological diversity through evolution over the thousands and millions of years following the calamity.

Life is thus bigger than its constituent representatives in getting through rough times. In other words, there is more hope for life itself in some form following a disaster, than for any species living at the time.

On the smaller scale pertaining to the individual, the hope for a particular living entity is tied up with the life expectancy of its species in a given environment, as well as some luck as to what befalls it (Manning, 2007; Mustart, et al, 1997; iNaturalist).