Comments on: Managing non-native invasive plants http://www.esa.org/esablog/ecology-in-policy/managing-non-native-invasive-plants/ EcoTone focuses on ecological science in the news and its use in policy, conservation and education. Fri, 05 Apr 2013 15:54:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Matt Chew http://www.esa.org/esablog/ecology-in-policy/managing-non-native-invasive-plants/comment-page-1/#comment-36886 Matt Chew Wed, 02 May 2012 15:38:31 +0000 http://www.esa.org/esablog/?p=7194#comment-36886 A.G. Tansley's ecosystem concept was a response to debates among ecologists during the 1920s and 1930s regarding wholes and parts and the meaning (if any) of ecological balance. Even though every proposed general conception of holism and balance has failed in the face of specific dynamism, ecologists' commitment to them as a be all, end all seems unshakable. Embedded in that commitment is the view that good ecology is what used to happen, and bad ecology is what happens now; that ecosystems were once healthy and intact but are now diseased and broken. Meanwhile, out there in the biosphere, ecological relationships happen while ecologists are making other plans. What CAN happen IS happening. Expanding populations are demonstrating fitness under locally prevailing conditions. Gene frequencies are changing. Nativeness is not conferring special privileges. Alienness is indicating, if anything, a susceptibility among some taxa to dispersal by human commerce. We are making once rare species common, and once common species rare. Some of those changes are inconvenient and upsetting, even expensive, especially when our primary reflex is "to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing" ramify them. Some of them we exempt, not because their effects are negligible, but because we like them. Complaining in minute detail is the lifeblood of blogging, and complaining is certainly more intuitive than ecology. Quantifying regrets, especially by monetizing them, satisfies the primal urge to cast blame as well and the modern urge to prepare for litigation. It's ultimately valuable to partisan fundraising, which seems to be ecology's new niche of choice. Now there is a hooded oriole on the porch and I must be going. A.G. Tansley’s ecosystem concept was a response to debates among ecologists during the 1920s and 1930s regarding wholes and parts and the meaning (if any) of ecological balance. Even though every proposed general conception of holism and balance has failed in the face of specific dynamism, ecologists’ commitment to them as a be all, end all seems unshakable. Embedded in that commitment is the view that good ecology is what used to happen, and bad ecology is what happens now; that ecosystems were once healthy and intact but are now diseased and broken.

Meanwhile, out there in the biosphere, ecological relationships happen while ecologists are making other plans. What CAN happen IS happening. Expanding populations are demonstrating fitness under locally prevailing conditions. Gene frequencies are changing. Nativeness is not conferring special privileges. Alienness is indicating, if anything, a susceptibility among some taxa to dispersal by human commerce. We are making once rare species common, and once common species rare. Some of those changes are inconvenient and upsetting, even expensive, especially when our primary reflex is “to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing” ramify them. Some of them we exempt, not because their effects are negligible, but because we like them.

Complaining in minute detail is the lifeblood of blogging, and complaining is certainly more intuitive than ecology. Quantifying regrets, especially by monetizing them, satisfies the primal urge to cast blame as well and the modern urge to prepare for litigation. It’s ultimately valuable to partisan fundraising, which seems to be ecology’s new niche of choice.

Now there is a hooded oriole on the porch and I must be going.

]]> By: Ecologist Goes to Washington » The importance of managing exotic invasive plants http://www.esa.org/esablog/ecology-in-policy/managing-non-native-invasive-plants/comment-page-1/#comment-36884 Ecologist Goes to Washington » The importance of managing exotic invasive plants Wed, 02 May 2012 13:39:15 +0000 http://www.esa.org/esablog/?p=7194#comment-36884 [...] more on invasive plants, see the accompanying post on ESA’s blog, [...] [...] more on invasive plants, see the accompanying post on ESA’s blog, [...]

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