“People like to have an enemy, and vilifying non-native species makes the world very simple,” said ecologist Mark Davis of Macalester College. “The public got sold this nativist paradigm: Native species are the good ones, and non-native species are bad. It’s a 20th century concept, like wilderness, that doesn’t make sense in the 21st century.” Davis is one of 18 ecologists to sign a June 9 Nature essay entitled, “Don’t judge species on their origins.” They argue that while some non-natives are indeed destructive, such as Guam’s brown tree snakes and Great Lakes zebra mussels, they’re the exception. Most are actually benign, relegated to a lower-class status that reflects prejudice rather than solid science, write the authors. Non-natives are assumed to be undesirable, and their benefits go ignored and unstudied...You can read the rest at the Wired Science link - and perhaps ponder the ultimate argument that the most invasive species on this planet is homo sapiens - "native" to Africa but invading (and altering) other ecosystems for millennia.
“Classifying biota according to their adherence to cultural standards of belonging, citizenship, fair play and morality does not advance our understanding of ecology,” wrote the essay’s authors. They also consider ecological nativism to be hypocritical — nobody’s complaining about lilacs or ring-necked pheasants — and a form of denialism: In a globalized, human-dominated world, plants and animals will get around...
Davis said that non-native species need to be addressed on a case-by-case basis. “We’re not saying, ‘Everything is okay, let’s open the doors,’” he said. “What’s frustrated us is that the actual data has often been misrepresented. People have heard that non-native species represent the second-greatest extinction threat in the world, and it’s just not true.” Davis noted that in many places, non-native species actually increase total biodiversity.
Addendum: The article has been roundly criticized by other science bloggers, as for example here. Other relevant criticism has been posted in the comments to this post.
With a hat tip to Dan Noland for alerting me to this link in a comment on another post.
The Nature article is interesting. It's a plea to be rational when deciding what non-natives we should spend time, money, and effort eradicating.
ReplyDeleteThe Wired Science article fell short by telling people to stop persecuting invasive species (rather than non-invasive non-natives) and likening their eradication to sociological themes. Gotta love science journalism...*sarcasm*
Did you mean "Homo sapiens"?
I did mean "sapiens" - fixed, thanks.
DeleteAnd I agree with your assessment of the Wired article's slant.
"non-native species actually increase total biodiversity"
ReplyDeletethis snippit made me laugh. I understand what it's meant to say but really is silly. Adding a non-native species would, by definition, be increasing biodiversity.
Anyhow, I do a bit of work in prairie preservation and have to pull up quite a few non-natives. I think the issue isn't that there is a denial about benefits but that people feel the potential problem should be fixed before it gets out of hand. Wishing to preserve a pristine environment and perhaps guilt over bringing in the invader might also have something to do with possibly unnecessary irradiation. It makes me wonder, though, what is better: to wait until something may or may not become a problem or to fix an issue before any consequences of it's introduction to the native environment. I realize this article was speaking primarily of already established non-natives but their effects could be unseen for many years; what once created more species down the line harms the overall function of the ecosystem.
eradication*
ReplyDeletesorry. unless the invader is blinky.
* for "irradiation." Tx - you really had me wondering...
DeleteNo one says boo about apple, peach, and orange trees, honey bees, wheat, soy, or any other invasive non-native (to the North American continent) species we find useful. They've been here so long we forget they aren't native. I for one, love the Mediterranean house geckos that have naturalized in my part of Texas, as I use them to combat the "illegal alien" German cockroaches that have colonized my house! I do rail against the Eastern Red Cedar that grows like a weed here, pushing out native species and starving deer, but providing shelter for little brown miotis bats. Even the lowly dandelion is an European invader, albeit a medicinal one.
ReplyDeleteAs the second author of the Nature commentary, and the author or co-author of three of the ten papers it cites, I invite readers here to http://asu.academia.edu/MattChew where you can access that material. Meanwhile, consider this: Does how you feel about something necessarily explain very much about what it is? See "The Rise and Fall of Biotic Nativeness: A Historical Perspective" via the academia link.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Matt. I hope you're a regular reader of this blog, and will stay on board, at least until I can figure out "anekeitaxonomies."
Delete:.)
So I am from NZ and while we use introduced species such as apple or cherry trees and have pet dogs, these don't run amuck. However, in many cases both have replaced or killed the native flora and fauna.
ReplyDeleteI know how invasive non-native flora and fauna can be be. Sure, on a case by case basis, but seriously? That isn't happening? The mere fact that you're pointing out that some things are good is showing we already do.
A man died in NZ last week as a result of an introduced species that causes havoc every year in NZ and destroys native insects. Sure, the wasp might be kept in control in other places but not in NZ.
So, yeah. This article was a waste of space. Introduced species can be helpful as we know. Meanwhile, NZ is still counting the cost of those that are invasive.
It took one cat to completely wipe out an entire species of bird that was native to just one island in the world. And that is bio-diversity?
I'm trying to find something positive about our Great Lakes being infested with Asian Carp, or the many of our lovely old city trees being killed by emerald ash borers. Maybe somebody can help?
ReplyDeleteZebra mussels have cleaned up Lake Huron and L. Erie quite nicely...I can see to depths previously murky and L Erie is a nice aqua-blue to the horizon where it used to be brown. They clog up effluent discharge pipes where they feed on various forms of pollution and hiring divers to clear them out is expensive. Boo-hoo.
ReplyDeleteI just checked to see if this is the same article that I remember being widely criticised by other science bloggers last year. Indeed it is, and so it's a little disappointing that you've linked to the article but not the criticism.
ReplyDeleteFor example, see http://scienceblogs.com/observations/2011/06/alien_invasions_do_they_deserv.php
Disappointing, perhaps, but not surprising - I miss a lot of stuff on the internet.
DeleteI've added the link you suggested to the post as an addendum. Thanks, Adrian.