Chapter V 

 COMPETITION FOR COMMON FOOD IN PROTOZOA 



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(1) At the end of the last century Boltzmann, considering the 

 struggle for existence in the biosphere as a whole, remarked that there 

 exists a considerable quantity of essential mineral substances needed 

 by all living beings, but that the resources of available solar energy 

 are comparatively more restricted and they constitute the narrow 

 link representing the principal object of competition. This circum- 

 stance has since been pointed out by many biophysicists, and we will 

 quote the words of Boltzmann himself ('05): "The general struggle 

 for existence of all living beings is not the struggle for the fundamental 

 substances, for these fundamental substances indispensable for all 

 living creatures exist abundantly in the air, the water and the soil. 

 This struggle is not a struggle for the energy which in the form of heat, 

 unfortunately not utilizable, is present in a great quantity in every 

 object, but it is a struggle for entropy, which is available when energy 

 passes from the hot sun to the cold earth. In order to utilize in the 

 best manner this passage, the plants spread under the rays of the 

 sun the immense surface of their leaves, and cause the solar energy 

 before reaching the temperature level of the earth to make syntheses 

 of which as yet we have no idea in our laboratories. The products 

 of this chemical kitchen are the object of the struggle in the animal 

 world." This idea of Boltzmann that the available solar energy 

 represents the narrow link for the living matter in the biosphere taken 

 as a whole is in a certain agreement with the data of the modern 

 geochemists. Thus Professor Vernadsky ('26) points out that a 

 part of the solar energy which is capable of producing chemical work 

 on the earth is to the very end utilized in the mechanism of the bio- 

 sphere. In other words, the transforming surface of the green living 

 matter utilizes entirely the rays of a definite wave-length in the proc- 

 ess of photosynthesis. 



(2) However that may be, the energetic side of the struggle for 

 existence in the biosphere as a whole has as yet been little studied, 



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