Ain't It Funny How Time (3.5 billion years worth) Slips Away?

 

Posted by Kevin on May 27, 2015 at 10:50 PM

Jun 23, 2014 

Ancestor's Trek

John Stewart

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I met a long lost cousin yesterday.

 

Or rather, a long line of them. In fact, an incredibly long line of cousins stretching back a billion years or so.

 

One of them was from the Comb Jellies era, which you may associate with greasy Brylcreem products from the 1950s and the line "Kookie, Kookie, Lend me Your Comb."

 

Am I dating myself yet?

 

If so, that's actually a good thing, because "Comb Jellies" are life forms properly titled Ctenophara that live in marine waters all over the world. They have combs used for swimming, making them the largest animals that swim using cilia, tiny comblike projections.

 

Ctenophara date from about 730 million or so years ago. They're one of many of our ancestors who are still hanging around (or should it be hanging on?) on earth.

 

Just after 8 a.m. Sunday, a group of some 50 people gathered at Erindale Park to take part in the fourth annual Ancestor's Trek, the evolutionary annual hike organized by Mississauga veterinarian Dr. Kevin Saldanha who is a mainstay of the Halton-Peel Humanist Community.

 

He's borrowed the thematic bent of a book called The Ancestor's Tale and translated it into a local annual trek that combines several agreeable elements including walking, heritage, science and education.

For background on the concept, check out Joseph Chin's excellent advance story for this year's event:

http://www.mississauga.com/community-story/4587172-hike-offers-a-pilgrimage-to-the-dawn-of-life/

 

While lifeforms have been around for 3.5 billion of earth's 4.5 billion years, the party didn't actually start with Paris Hilton.

 

It started when cells decided to get together and then divide, one of those far-sighted early breakup and recombination reality concepts that always get such good ratings.

 

"We do have a kinship with many other things and we will be following the path that humans took," explained the long-time Mississauga resident as the event kicked off in bright sunshine. "Each stride you take represents about 60,000 years.

 

"The time that humans have been on earth in the form we have today" (~200,000y) would be taken up in the last 3 strides that each walker took yesterday at the end of the hike in Pinecliff Park, he explained.

 

Talk about readjusting your scale of measurement.  If that fact alone doesn't do it, how about all recorded history (about 5000 years) would fit into 6 cm (a palm width) or our entire modern world (constructed during the last 300 years since the industrial revolution) would be about 1.5cm of that (a mere thumbs width).

 

The walk stretched 12.5 km from Erindale Park along the Culham Trail that winds beside the Credit River, all the way up to Pinecliff Park in Meadowvale South, just south of Kenninghall Blvd.

 

At various information signposts along the way, Saldanha reintroduced us to our cousins the Choanoflagellates (there's one who overdoes it in every family), the sponges, the placozoans (literally "flat animals") and eventually to the jellyfish, dinosaurs and the monkeys. In other words, the regulars who always show up at the annual reunion.

 

Periodically, Saldanha would wax philosophic on the potential end of the story, noting for instance that the last of the five "extinction" events in earth's history killed the dinosaurs and wiped out all the other mammals on earth, with the exception of one burrowing mole species, from which we (and all other mammals from mice to whales) are all descended.  And we are now contributing to the 6th great extinction judging from the number of species going extinct due to pollution, deforestation and climate change.

 

Another of our common ancestors, coral which counteracts ocean acidification and provides critical habitat for fish to spawn, is in major, major difficulty due to ocean warming and elevated carbon dioxide levels, he explained.

 

Commercial fishing for shrimp and prawns is doing major damage to coral reefs.

 

"It's like losing the rainforest of the sea," Saldanha said. "This is not just about our common ancestry. It also teaches us a little bit about how we, as humans, are changing the environment.

 

"That's not to say that everyone has to go vegan," he added. "But just be a little bit more aware of what we're doing when you go to Red Lobster."

 

At that point, standing underneath the Highway 403 bridge Saldanha reminded walkers that they could still get their Ancestor's Trail "passports" marked for various prehistoric checkpoints.

 

"Don't worry if you don't get them marked, you'll still get a hot dog at the end," he added.

 

"With no shrimp," some wit pointed out.

 

The presence of former Ward 6 Councillor David Culham, for whom the trail was named, made it a historical, environmental and political education as well as a scientific one.

 

He recalled the days when much of Erindale Park was actually Erindale Lake, part of a hydro-electric plant whose remnants can still be seen in some areas. It's unlikely many of its users also know the park, like so many others including Port Credit Memorial, was originally a garbage dump.

 

As the trail wended its way through Hewick Meadows, Culham recalled the late night call he received many years ago from local planning consultant John Rogers which triggered his even more late-night negotiations with Steve Hewick, which resulted in a negotiated deal in which the land below the top of bank was donated to the city.

 

Culham thinks the clincher to the deal was his appeal to Hewick that other children should be able to learn to kayak on the stretch of river the same way that his children did.

 

The former Ontario Municipal Board member was also able to fill in the historical reason for the gap in the trail in Streetsville. While ADM Milling on Barbertown Rd. has granted an easement through its lands, hard feelings between Kraft Milling and the residents — hard feelings that ended with a messy Ontario Municipal Board hearing — still haven't healed.

 

But Culham remains optimistic about eventually getting access along the valley right through Streetsville and north of Highway 401 in Meadowvale Village where negotiations have been going on for years.

 

As participants reached the end of Ancestor's Trail, they got an up close and personal chance to communicate with their reptile relatives, including an albino Burmese python, Argentinian black and white tegu and frilled dragon iguana, which were brought to the site by local reptile enthusiasts.

 

And, as promised, there were hot dogs.

 

With nary a shrimp in site.

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Ancestor's Trek

Photos by John Stewart

Dr. Kevin Saldanha (right) is thanked for organizing the annual Ancestor's Trail hike by Ward 6 Councillor Ron Starr. 

Photo by John Stewart

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Ancestor's Trek

John Stewart

An angler tries in luck in the middle of the Credit.

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Ancestor's Trek

John Stewart

The crowd included about 50, not counting pets.

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Ancestor's Trek

John Stewart

The event travels the Culham trail, on the east side of the Credit River.

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Ancestor's Trek

John Stewart

Markers along the way detailed the life forms that preceded human beings.

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Ancestor's Trek

John Stewart

Dr. Kevin Saldanha started Ancestor's Trail four years ago and continues to lead the way. Here he explains the importance of sponges at a stop below Highway 403.

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Ancestor's Trek

John Stewart

A stop at Hewick's Meadow, just south of Eglinton Ave. W.

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Ancestor's Trek

John Stewart

This stop behind River Grove Community Centre, detailed one of five extinction events in the earth's history.

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Ancestor's Trek

John Stewart

There's always time to stop and take a photo of the scenic Credit.

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Ancestor's Trek

John Stewart

A commemorative photo at Pinecliffe Park marks the end of Ancestor's trail, for this year.

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Ancestor's Trek

John Stewart

A frilled dragon iguana, on display t the end of the hike, enjoyed a sunbath on his owner's shoulder.

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Ancestor's Trek

John Stewart

An Argentinian black and white tegu spoke with forked tongue, and got lots of attention.

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Ancestor's Trek

John Stewart

An albino Burmese python was willing to pose for photos with some walkers to provide a memento of the 12.5 km. trek

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Ancestor's Trek

Photos by John Stewart

This Argentinian black and white tegu was a big hit at the end of the Ancestors' Trail 12.5 km. walk along the Credit River Valley Sunday. The trail included a series of stops that highlighted the forerunners of humans, including reptiles. Photo by John Stewart.

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A hike back in geological time

A hike back in geological time

A hike back in geological time

May 30, 2013 | Author:Freelance Writer Margo Pierce

Kevin Saldhana (center) takes people on a 12.5-kilometer hike back to the beginning of multi-cellular life on Earth to help them understand our connection to other living beings. (Photo: Courtesy of the Ancetor's Trail Hike)

If a single human stride (0.75 meters/.82 yards) is equivalent to 60,000 years, then 6.25 centimeters (2.46 inches) represents the duration of human civilization, which is only 5,000 years old. That means a 12.5-kilometer (7.7-mile) hike would cover approximately one billion years of evolutionary time, back to the beginning of multi-cellular life on Earth. But who would make such a calculation and why? Kevin Saldhana did. He’s a veterinarian in Ontario, Canada, and the founder of the Ancestor’s Trail Hike in Mississauga, Ontario.

The hike is an opportunity to combine education about the natural world. A pre-set route is mapped against a specific timeline in Earth’s history. During the hike there are stops, called milestones, where hikers learn about different developments in the lifecycles of creatures on the planet. The goal is to go back in time to learn about human ancestors that didn’t look like people but are still part of our biological family.

This in turn creates an opportunity for humans to understand the importance of preserving biodiversity. For Saldhana, one of the many volunteers who will participate in the third annual hike June 23, the link between humans and all living beings is essential to reverse the devastation of the natural world by human exploitation.

Having studied evolution during his schooling, Saldhana thought he had a good sense of the connection between humans and other living beings. But the notion of a common ancestry, that humans came from other beings and not just apes, isn’t something taught in most schools.

“You know it at the back of your mind but it doesn’t hit you until you realize that a fish is your cousin, a coral is your cousin,” he says. “You’ve got the same DNA in your cells that those organisms have in their cells. The genetics, the DNA sequencing, proves that we have common DNA and genes.”

The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Richard Dawkins takes readers from modern day back through time to identify common ancestors. The book gave Saldhana the idea to recreate that virtual march through time along the Culham Trail, which follows the Credit River in the western portion of Mississauga. The biggest challenge was helping participants comprehend the scale of time.

“The concept of geological time is so difficult to grasp, not just for kids but for adults,” Saldhana says. “That’s why the reluctance to believe in evolution. If you don’t understand geologic time, then it’s really difficult to understand evolution. This would be an ideal opportunity to show people that on a hike.”

The start of the hike begins in the past. Each step moves people closer to present day.

“I’ve only plotted the last billion years from the time multi-cellular life started,” Saldhana says. “I decided to keep the scale constant, so for the first several hundred million years there’s not much happening until you get to about 500 million years ago, where the hag fish (appear), and the shark and boney fish about 450 million years ago. As you get down to 300 million, where the amphibians and reptiles (appear), it starts getting exciting. You can actually relate to animals that you see today.”

As life begins to appear, the hikers stop at “rendezvous” points to learn about the animals from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), naturalists and other experts. On the 2011 hike, the 6 million year rendezvous focused on the primates of that time. Abner Lico of the Jane Goodall Institute's Roots & Shoots program also talked about the youth leadership program related to environmental issues.

Part of the Ancestor’s Trail Hike is a fundraiser for Roots & Shoots. The youth environmental organization connects kids of all ages around the world who “share a desire to create a better world,” by identifying problems in their communities and taking action through service projects and an interactive website. This was added as the result of feedback from hikers who wanted to give something back.

Saldhana believes that kind of direct action will come from recognizing that human beings have a responsibility to care for the world from which we come. The science of the past and present creates the understanding of why the fate of other beings should matter to us.

“About 440 million years ago we had a common ancestor with boney fish, which is somewhere between lung fish and sharks,” he says. “A lot of people may understand a common ancestry with chimps, bonobos and maybe even apes, but when you talk about fish they say, ‘Fish are so different from us. How could we have a common ancestor with them?’”

Saldhana explains by using the anatomy of modern day humans to draw a connection --  the vertebra in our spinal column formed in the early boney fish. And the gills of a fish evolved over time into a structure used for hearing sound, our ears.

“I usually tell people I’m not making up this stuff because it’s probably the first time they’ve heard it. They can go back and they can read up on it and see how, even through embryology, when a human embryo is conceived, the whole structure looks very much like a tadpole, which looks similar to other mammals at that stage.”

Hiker and 2011 trail volunteer Vishal Murthy points out that hikers can get more information on the spot. QR codes on signs at the various stops on the route allow a smartphone to access additional resources about the animals and time period represented. A student of veterinary medicine, Murthy was working with Saldanha when the first hike was organized.

“I felt that this walk really drove home the scope and enormity of time and the process of change on our planet,” Murthy says. “Learning about evolution is one thing, but to actually walk the trail as we went from one ancestor to another, it really helped put into perspective how much history we share with animals and how short a time we as humans have truly spent on the Earth."

One of the ancient life forms still alive today is coral and it serves to illustrate the impact humans are having on the existence of others to whom we’re connected. The acidification of ocean water causes coral bleaching, which in turn destroys the incubator of the marine food chain, according to Saldanha. He invites groups working to reverse this kind of destruction to present information to hikers at the milestones. (See the milestones on the Google trail map)

United Conservationists is one of the groups that volunteered to help with the Ancestor’s Trail hike. They included the movieShark Water by, Toronto filmmaker Rob Stewart, as part of the information they shared. It serves as an illustration of what Saldhana wants people to learn from evolution, geologic time and humanity.

The fins are harvest by cutting all of them from the bodies of live sharks. Then the body is thrown back into the ocean.

“They can’t swim, so they sink to the bottom of the ocean and die,” Saldhana explains. “There are things that we’re doing that are unsustainable, are really cruel.

Raising this kind of awareness is considered political by some, even though Saldhana says his focus is on science. He believes fact, not religious beliefs or political agendas, is what’s needed for people to learn the truth about the state of the natural world. But difficulties still arise. One of the largest hiking clubs in the area refused to promote the Ancestor’s Trail hike to its membership, stating, “People will see it as a threat to their religion, so we won’t promote it.”

Saldhana insists science offers the best explanation for the way in which humans fit into the world.

“We’re destroying that web of life that we’re intricately connected to. As those connections are breaking down, we’re putting humanity at risk,” he says.

Saldhana hopes that by understanding the ancestry we share with a variety of living beings, not just those who seem to look like us, will make it possible to better understand our multifaceted connections with the natural world. If we have a kinship with these creatures, he explains, then there’s an opportunity for a sense of responsibility for the fate of those relations. As the highest form of intelligent life, humans have a unique role and importance in the preservation of life, but that can’t happen as long as people don’t see and feel the need to protect those that can’t protect themselves against us.

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