{"id":5323,"date":"2011-06-10T14:11:29","date_gmt":"2011-06-10T18:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=5323"},"modified":"2011-06-10T14:11:29","modified_gmt":"2011-06-10T18:11:29","slug":"speaking-of-species-and-their-origins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2011\/06\/10\/speaking-of-species-and-their-origins\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaking of species and their origins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>An essay published in the June 8 issue of Nature<\/em> is causing something of a stir. Eighteen ecologists who signed the essay, titled \u201cDon\u2019t judge species on their origins<\/a>,\u201d \u201cargue that conservationists should assess organisms based on their impact on the local environment, rather than simply whether they\u2019re native,\u201d as described in a recent Scientific American<\/em> podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the essay, Mark Davis from Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota and colleagues argue that adherence to the idea of non-natives as \u201cthe enemy\u201d is more a reflection of \u201cprejudice rather than solid science,\u201d wrote Brandon Keim in a Wired Science<\/em> article.<\/a> As the authors wrote, the \u201cpreoccupation with the native\u2013alien dichotomy\u201d among scientists, land managers and policy-makers is prohibitive to dynamic and pragmatic conservation and species management in a 21st<\/sup> century planet that is forever altered by climate change, land-use changes and other anthropogenic influences. As a result of this misguided preoccupation, claim the authors, time and resources are unnecessarily spent attempting to eradicate introduced species that actually turn out to be a boon to the environment; the authors cite the non-native tamarisk tree<\/a> in the western U.S. as an example of this.<\/p>\n

But some other ecological scientists believe that the authors of the essay are barking up the wrong tamarisk tree, so to speak. Not only is there a disagreement with the paper\u2019s premise<\/a> that there is an unjust bias against all non-natives, but other scientists assert that the harm non-natives are capable of causing should not be overlooked. Jessica Gurevitch, an ecologist at the State University of New York Stony Brook, stated that the authors \u201cdownplay some of the problems and uncertainties,\u201d and she insists that the \u201cjust get used to [non-natives being the norm]\u201d attitude is misguided. David Pimentel, an entomologist at Cornell University, has estimated invasive species damage in the U.S.<\/a> at between $100 billion and $200 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the essay authors argue that \u201cbeing indigenous doesn\u2019t grant a species special rights to inhabit an ecosystem,\u201d according to the Scientific American<\/em> podcast<\/a>, and Razib Khan from Discover<\/em>\u2019s blog Gene Expression<\/em> reminds readers that<\/a> \u201cwe [humans] are after all an invasive species oursel[ves]!\u201d Furthermore, not all natives are economically and ecologically beneficial. For example, British Columbia has recently had one of the largest infestations of the mountain pine beetle<\/a>, a species indigenous to pine forests of western North America, on record\u2014an issue that has caused significant ecological impacts. And according to Mark Davis<\/a>, many non-natives can actually boost biodiversity.<\/p>\n

But is biodiversity always the ultimate goal? David Lodge, an ecologist at the University of Notre Dame, argues otherwise. While local biodiversity may at times increase with the introduction of non-native species, he asserts, \u201ceach locale may come to resemble the next,\u201d embodying what some biologists call \u2018the homogecene\u2019<\/a>. What\u2019s more, discussions of the article have raised doubts about the essay\u2019s supportive data<\/a> regarding supposedly harmless species such as non-native honeysuckles.<\/p>\n

Even so, \u201cscientists who malign introduced plants and animals for thriving under favorable conditions seem to be disregarding basic ecological and evolutionary principles,\u201d ecologist and historian of invasion biology Matthew Chew and \u00a0ecologist Julie Stromberg both of Arizona State University asserted, according to a Physorg<\/em> article<\/a>. \u201cEvaluating whether a species \u2018belongs\u2019 in a particular place is more complicated than just finding out how and when it arrived.\u201d Authors of the Nature<\/em> essay agree, saying that \u201cclassifying biota according to their adherence to cultural standards of belonging, citizenship, fair play and morality does not advance our understanding of ecology.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do you think about the Nature<\/em> paper? What does<\/em> give a species the \u201cright\u201d to thrive in a particular ecosystem, if not native status? Are non-natives unjustly persecuted, or is this controversy overplayed? Take part in the discussion by replying with a comment below.<\/p>\n

Photo Credit: Steven Damron<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An essay published in the June 8 issue of Nature is causing something of a stir. Eighteen ecologists who signed the essay, titled \u201cDon\u2019t judge species on their origins,\u201d \u201cargue that conservationists should assess organisms based on their impact on the local environment, rather than simply whether they\u2019re native,\u201d as described in a recent Scientific American podcast. In the essay,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1182],"tags":[970,287,7,538,1221,1222,109,18,1223,1224,104],"class_list":["post-5323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecologist-2","tag-american","tag-biodiversity","tag-conservation","tag-ecology","tag-indigenous","tag-introduced","tag-invasive-species","tag-management","tag-native","tag-non-native","tag-species"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}