A species’ presence can transform a landscape more than its physical mass suggests.

Evidence

The physics of beauty is one department of natural science still in the Dark Ages. Not even the manipulators of bent space have tried to solve its equations. Everybody knows, for example, that the autumn landscape in the north woods is the land, plus a red maple, plus a ruffed grouse. In terms of conventional physics, the grouse represents only a millionth of either the mass or the energy of an acre. Yet subtract the grouse and the whole thing is dead. An enormous amount of some kind of motive power has been lost. … A philosopher has called this imponderable essence the numenon of material things. It stands in contradistinction to phenomenon, which is ponderable and predictable, even to the tossings and turnings of the remotest star. — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 493

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces numenon as distinct from phenomenon — the imponderable essence of a place versus its measurable properties.
• XREF: Nuanced counterpoint to the objective-quantification ethos in Soundscape and elsewhere; connects to the polyad’s listening-observation thread. — connects to: Passenger pigeons were a self-extinguishing chain reaction dependent on full intensity. — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 392; Ecological invaders succeed one another in chains driven by land-use change — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 546; Large-scale disturbances can prevent landscapes from reaching equilibrium — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 2272 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Ecological invaders succeed one another in chains driven by land-use change #exemplifies (0.75) — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 546
• Large-scale disturbances can prevent landscapes from reaching equilibrium #expands (0.72) — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 2272