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Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 12, 2016 9:22:19 GMT -5
This is a very interesting discussion. I do tend to agree with castanea that "invasive" species are in the eye of the beholder, but it cannot be denied that they do reorganize ecosystems. I understand what templeton is saying about the desire to preserve unique ecologies of places like OZ. The problem being that the ship has sailed. Ecosystems are at the most basic level about energy transfers. Organisms that are more efficient at acquiring and redistributing energy by whatever mechanisms tend to outcompete less efficient organisms. Once they are released and established on something like a continent, the genie is forever out of the bottle. It is hard not to mourn the unique Australian and NZ lifeforms that have been lost. There is a lot of evidence that land organisms that evolve on large land masses tend to evolve more efficient resource exploitation strategies than organisms from smaller land masses. During the Pleistocene, at times there was continuous land area from Tierra del Fuego to the Cape of Good Hope, essentially allowing any organism from 5 continents to spread and adapt to any niche available on any of the others. An organism that has stayed at home on one continent is still exposed and forced to adapt to organisms that have relocated from other types of predators/competitors that have migrated from elsewhere even if they do not themselves migrate. The evolutionary pressure is more intense. When isolated, insular ecologies are suddenly exposed to these types of organisms the results are usually rapid ecological reorganization, wether or not human impacts are included. The Great American Interchange is the classic example of this, though it doesn't bode well for unique OZ lifeforms. I highly recommend "the Song of the Dodo" by David Quammen. Highly readable exhaustive discussion of biogeography with tons of fascinating anecdotes from all over the world. Great book. |
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Post by steev on Sept 12, 2016 22:36:27 GMT -5
Playing from T's last; I think the real problem of "invasives" is that humans have jump-started this other-wise natural process, thanks to our remarkably rapid transport system.
I think this is the real problem: we can carry things around, willy-nilly, thoughtlessly around the globe, sometimes accidentally, regardless of the effect on native species (even if they're potentially of benefit to us); rabbits in Oz; cats and rats all over, come to mind.
Castanea: granted: Nature doesn't give a shit, at least so far as it is made clear to us; I have no reason to suppose She should; however, I seriously doubt that Nature envisioned the rapidity with which humans could/would transport species hither and yon. That is why I am unsure of the notion of "survival of the fittest" as a short-term construct, given that it is being applied to ecosystems invaded by species that were "transported". rather than "immigrated" over millennia.
T: I'm not saying you're wrong; I mostly agree, apart from the snotty "depauperate...etc" bullshit; really, say what comes to mind; in a spirit of mutual respect, we can work it out, understanding that we all spout things that may have more complex ramifications than are apparent at first blush.
Am I not the very model of this?
I will fight anyone who denies that I am opinionated and combative!
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Post by blueadzuki on Sept 13, 2016 7:03:37 GMT -5
There even seem to be some cases where we appear to be incorrectly intervening by KEEPING species from extinction. Cheetahs might be a good example. There is now pretty strong evidence that the cheetah underwent a mass extinction some time a few million years ago (similar to the one that happened to our remote ancestors and dropped the world human population to about 7,000, but more severe) that all but wiped them out. This resulted in a massive genetic bottleneck and a species whose members have been terminally inbred for millennia. In other words a species that was probably on it's way out long before us humans ever got involved. In that eventuality, our standard argument in rescuing the species from extinction is justified by it being our "fault" may not be valid in this case (though in defense of those who hold that idea, it can certainly be said that our rampant killing of cheetahs over the centuries and the consequent extinction of many of the populations (such as the Indian cheetah) and near extinction of others (such as the desert adapted versions found in Niger's Tenerive and Egypt's Quattara regions) has been a clear example of making a bad situation much worse.) and our continual attempts to "correct" it may actually be flying in the face of natural selection.
This is probably compounded by our wishy-washy approach. We go out of our ways to create captive cheetah breeding programs knowing their success rate is always going to be low (the inbreeding is so severe by now, that the average male cheetah's sperm contains only about 10% healthy cells). But there is little to no talk about trying to collect DNA from any other sources (say those aforementioned isolated populations or Indian skins kept as hunting trophies and see if cloning could be used to widen the gene pool a little. The tech is there by now, and it seems more reasonable than trying to clone Mammoths.
We've probably done much the same thing with ourselves. I'm no great proponent of eugenics (at least, not in the form it is usually applied by us humans) but even I can see that our ability and tendency to care for the genetically enfeebled has probably allowed a lot of genes that in the natural order of things would have been removed from the gene pool to linger on (I wonder how many people in the Hanover line BEFORE Queen Victoria had hemophilia and simply didn't create the mess she did simply because medical technology simply wasn't advanced enough to allow them to live long enough to produce children)
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Post by castanea on Sept 13, 2016 9:00:12 GMT -5
"Invasive" is completely a human concept applicable only to human culture and human issues. Nature doesn't give a shit - whatever is strongest survives. Period. Humans also look at the world in very short segments of time. If things are not the way humans want them to be in the next 25-100 years, they freak out. Nature just doesn't care. An interesting take, Castanea. 'Conservation', 'extinction', 'beauty' and 'compassion' are also human constructs, but that doesn't make them irrelevant to our actions. Nature doesn't give a shit - but when say a bacterial infection is causing my dog pain, should i do nothing because nature doesn't give a shit? I think perhaps the arguments for and against invasives are a bit more nuanced. In addition to humans looking at short time periods, I've noticed northern hemisphere residents, living in their depauperate post glacial environments are often blinkered to ecological processes that take place in the rich and unique environments that have evolved elsewhere - but perhaps this discussion has wandered a bit off topic... T All you're saying is that you care and that things are relevant to you. My point remains that nature doesn't care. There is nothing inherently bad about bacterial infections. Whatever is strongest survives. Bacterial infections help insure that. You can feel however you want about bacterial infections but those are just your feelings. Nature does not care. There are billions of humans on earth and each one of us feels differently about any number of things. There is no nuance of any kind in nature. There are only differences in opinions among individual humans. The concept of "invasive" plants is solely a construct of individual human beings. What you speak of as "nuance" are only individual differences of opinion among human beings. |
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Post by castanea on Sept 13, 2016 9:12:21 GMT -5
Playing from T's last; I think the real problem of "invasives" is that humans have jump-started this other-wise natural process, thanks to our remarkably rapid transport system. T think this is the real problem: we can carry things around, willy-nilly, thoughtlessly around the globe, sometimes accidentally, regardless of the effect on native species (even if they're potentially of benefit to us); rabbits in Oz; cats and rats all over, come to mind. Castanea: granted: Nature doesn't give a shit, at least so far as it is made clear to us; I have no reason to suppose She should; however, I seriously doubt that Nature envisioned the rapidity with which humans could/would transport species hither and yon. That is why I am unsure of the notion of "survival of the fittest" as a short-term construct, given that it is being applied to ecosystems invaded by species that were "transported". rather than "immigrated" over millennia. T: I'm not saying you're wrong; I mostly agree, apart from the snotty "depauperate...etc" bullshit; really, say what comes to mind; in a spirit of mutual respect, we can work it out, understanding that we all spout things that may have more complex ramifications than are apparent at first blush. Am I not the very model of this? I will fight anyone who denies that I am opinionated and combative! Those are your concerns. Some are mine and some are not. Many human beings have none of those concerns. They are not concerns of nature. What I object to is the idea that "invasives" exist in the natural world. They do not. Tigers exist in the real world. "Invasive" is a concept created by human beings to complain about something they do not like. That is all it is. And there are no two people on earth who will agree on what invasives are or on what should be done about them. We can all agree on what tigers are, because they're real. Invasives are just a human construct. It's far more honest to say that one does not want kudzu growing in ones neighborhood than it is to make a proclamation from on high that kudzu is invasive and humans should prevent its spread. The former is fact. The latter is simply an attempt to turn a personal opinion into a universal truth. |
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Post by philip on Sept 14, 2016 15:51:27 GMT -5
An interesting take, Castanea. 'Conservation', 'extinction', 'beauty' and 'compassion' are also human constructs, but that doesn't make them irrelevant to our actions. Nature doesn't give a shit - but when say a bacterial infection is causing my dog pain, should i do nothing because nature doesn't give a shit? I think perhaps the arguments for and against invasives are a bit more nuanced. In addition to humans looking at short time periods, I've noticed northern hemisphere residents, living in their depauperate post glacial environments are often blinkered to ecological processes that take place in the rich and unique environments that have evolved elsewhere - but perhaps this discussion has wandered a bit off topic... T All you're saying is that you care and that things are relevant to you. My point remains that nature doesn't care. There is nothing inherently bad about bacterial infections. Whatever is strongest survives. Bacterial infections help insure that. You can feel however you want about bacterial infections but those are just your feelings. Nature does not care. There are billions of humans on earth and each one of us feels differently about any number of things. There is no nuance of any kind in nature. There are only differences in opinions among individual humans. The concept of "invasive" plants is solely a construct of individual human beings. What you speak of as "nuance" are only individual differences of opinion among human beings. I lived for nine years in Ireland. I spent the last two years living in County Kerry (aka "the kingdom of Ireland"). The nature in the kerry peninsula is absolutely stunningly beautiful with amazing oak woodlands. They even have europe's only native yew woodland. But then rhododendron ponticum arrived... I have seen what this stuff does and it's a crying shame. It can regrow from any old twig or little piece of root. The plant secrets a chemical that inhibits germination of oak acorns and other tree seeds. While oak trees harbour hundreds of native animals birds and insects the numbers are way lower for rhododendron. The rhododendron spreads at a crazy speed and it's impossible to stop it. It doesn't kill the old established oaks but no new young trees grow anymore, so in a few centuries Ireland will be a rhododendron forest (at least in all climaticly favorable areas) It is totally changing the irish countryside and, if predictions hold true, is vastly lowering biodiversity by destroying native woodland. So yes, invasive species are real and they are a problem (to us) and it is our fault. www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/the-30-years-war-the-fight-against-rhododendron-1.2317249www.wildflowersofireland.net/plant_detail.php?id_flower=488&wildflower=Rhododendronwww.irishtimes.com/news/environment/rhododendron-rescue-walkers-trapped-by-plants-for-five-hours-1.1835371www.forestryfocus.ie/growing-forests-3/threats-to-forests/invasive-species/ |
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Post by philip on Sept 14, 2016 16:00:58 GMT -5
Ok i have to correct myself. It is not the only pure yew woodland in europe, eventhough someone told me it was. There are others but they are very rare.
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Post by castanea on Dec 8, 2016 21:08:43 GMT -5
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Post by castanea on Dec 8, 2016 21:26:23 GMT -5
All you're saying is that you care and that things are relevant to you. My point remains that nature doesn't care. There is nothing inherently bad about bacterial infections. Whatever is strongest survives. Bacterial infections help insure that. You can feel however you want about bacterial infections but those are just your feelings. Nature does not care. There are billions of humans on earth and each one of us feels differently about any number of things. There is no nuance of any kind in nature. There are only differences in opinions among individual humans. The concept of "invasive" plants is solely a construct of individual human beings. What you speak of as "nuance" are only individual differences of opinion among human beings. I lived for nine years in Ireland. I spent the last two years living in County Kerry (aka "the kingdom of Ireland"). The nature in the kerry peninsula is absolutely stunningly beautiful with amazing oak woodlands. They even have europe's only native yew woodland. But then rhododendron ponticum arrived... I have seen what this stuff does and it's a crying shame. It can regrow from any old twig or little piece of root. The plant secrets a chemical that inhibits germination of oak acorns and other tree seeds. While oak trees harbour hundreds of native animals birds and insects the numbers are way lower for rhododendron. The rhododendron spreads at a crazy speed and it's impossible to stop it. It doesn't kill the old established oaks but no new young trees grow anymore, so in a few centuries Ireland will be a rhododendron forest (at least in all climaticly favorable areas) It is totally changing the irish countryside and, if predictions hold true, is vastly lowering biodiversity by destroying native woodland. So yes, invasive species are real and they are a problem (to us) and it is our fault. www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/the-30-years-war-the-fight-against-rhododendron-1.2317249www.wildflowersofireland.net/plant_detail.php?id_flower=488&wildflower=Rhododendronwww.irishtimes.com/news/environment/rhododendron-rescue-walkers-trapped-by-plants-for-five-hours-1.1835371www.forestryfocus.ie/growing-forests-3/threats-to-forests/invasive-species/It's a problem to you. It's not a problem to nature. Whether biodiversity increases or decreases is apparently an issue that matters to you but it doesn't matter to nature. All things change sooner or later. All places go through cycles of differing levels of biodiversity. Humans are fixated on NOW and the few years into the future that they can imagine. Humans don't know and can't predict and can't control what will happen in 200,000 years. Nature does not care ever. The word invasive is just a word you use to describe your personal feelings about plants you don't like right now. There is no scientific basis to it at all. Nature, oddly enough, prefers invasive plants. They're the ones that survive. If you don't like them, nature doesn't care. My point is that the only thing the word "invasive" means is that you have emotional feelings about something occurring in nature. That's your right. I have emotional feelings about plants too, but I don't pretend that my feelings represent universal truth or that they have any scientific relevance at all. Nor do I make up words to try to justify my emotional feelings. Invasive plants are a fiction created to justify the emotional feelings of people who don't like some plants. |
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Post by prairiegardens on Dec 10, 2016 1:18:54 GMT -5
It's probably an innate part of any organism including humans to prefer things that support them in the easiest or most comfortable way, it's just humans are more adept and willing to force the environment to change to suit them, or at least try, and often succed, at least short term. So as a group we tend to frown on things which " spoil" the arrangements, such as kudzu turning rogue and defying our attempts to control it. Although, I've heard suggestions for using it which sound both practical and effective, lacking only in willing partipants to put them into practice. I'm no expert on it though, so no way to know if they're valid or not, but it does sometimes seem as though most of the "invasives" do have a role to play in regeneration. Japanese knotweed apparently tends to disappear as fertility increases, true or not don't know, this was an observation by someone in Montana. It also apparently some some medicinal applications.
Otoh I was astonished to learn that supposedly there were no native earthworms in North America and now they are being blamed for the native forests in NY and New England States etc being in trouble, still not sure I'm entirely convinced, It's sorta difficult to see any advantage in giant hogweed, and we really could have done without the Lyme disease carrying ticks etc. Nature will undoubtedly eventually evolve all new ecosystems to replace those we've mucked up. Given that supposedly humans are presently responsible directly or indirectly for this being an age of extinction it may be a bit of a bumpy ride for a few centuries. It is really sad to think of things like the Great Barrier Reef dying though.
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Post by steev on Dec 10, 2016 2:21:15 GMT -5
Wherever they came from, there were damned few earthworms on my farm before I started increasing the organic matter in the soil and irrigating; given that my farm is very "out of the way", I'm not at all sure that the worms are not native.
No way in hell that regeneration of ecosystems will happen in centuries; the climate-change already in progress won't play out that quickly; we humans have fucked things up so badly, it'll be amazing if things get sorted out in millennia, if not hundreds of millennia.
Even though they knew this was happening, Exxon buried the studies of climate-change: the Congressional fossil-fuel whores continue to spew the "no climate-change" lie; profits uber alles! Old school idea: "What does it profit a man that he gain the whole world, if he lose his soul?". I'm a-religious, but I know wisdom when I see it.
Reason will get us through this coming shit-storm (of our own causing); faith will only cause us to accept the results of our own actions as "the Will of God"; how passive, lazy, and cowering!
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Post by blueadzuki on Dec 10, 2016 7:14:02 GMT -5
I think the actual truth is that there were very FEW native earthworms in North America before the Europeans arrived, and most of those were west of the Rockies (there is, for example an extremely rare and endangered white species in Oregon (that has only been found around twice in all of history) I tend to think that "species so rare it is has only ever been seen twice" and "species that has been introduced from somewhere else" do not normally match.
While I agree that, with time Nature will probably sort itself out, what we are doing to damage the world is kind of unique. It's like a polar event, a methane release, over-hunting, and a meteor strike ALL ROLLED INTO ONE. The way we are going, I think it might be MILLIONS, if not BILLIONS of years before the ecosystem put itself back together, simply because by the time we are done on this path, extant life will basically be reduced back to bacteria, and have to re-start evolution from there (if we don't figure out some wholly new method of degradation that wipe even THEM out and leaves the Earth sterile and lifeless).
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Post by MikeH on Dec 11, 2016 15:21:05 GMT -5
And so the borders close another notch. And then some - once you are bar coded, you are in the system.  |
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Post by richardw on Dec 11, 2016 23:39:19 GMT -5
While I agree that, with time Nature will probably sort itself out, what we are doing to damage the world is kind of unique. Ive often thought how nature would sort itself out here in New Zealand if humans disappeared, before humans arrived to these islands there were no land mammals apart from bats. With the introduction of pigs, deer, chamois, thar, wallabies, goats, etc etc and no humans to control there numbers, they would build up to huge numbers and destroy the forests. |
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Post by blueadzuki on Dec 12, 2016 2:55:28 GMT -5
Ive often thought how nature would sort itself out here in New Zealand if humans disappeared, before humans arrived to these islands there were no land mammals apart from bats. Well, give or take a wraitoreke
With the introduction of pigs, deer, chamois, thar, wallabies, goats, etc etc and no humans to control there numbers, they would build up to huge numbers and destroy the forests. [/font] [/quote][/quote] It doesn't help that, in places like New Zealand, anything besides humans that is BIG enough to take down a deer has been pretty much wiped out (I mean presumably a Haast's eagle could have taken down a fawn) but now, I'm not sure how the environment would handle it minus the predators, and minus whatever eco-niche the varios Moas filled (I'm not sure whether they were carnivores or herbivores or both) Ditto Australia (there'd still be dogs/dingoes cats, foxes, and crocs, but noting to fill in for the Thylacaleo the Megalania and so on. ) |
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