Comments on: Are there aliens worth saving?

By: David B. Benson

David B. Benson — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 03:07:18 +0000

Solitha — Current thought is that it is a viral inflection combined with mites moving over from the Euorpean honey bees. Damage is done now and it seems I’ll have to make do with little green butterflies.

By: Solitha

Solitha — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 07:11:07 +0000

David… ask Australia and New Zealand if that line of thinking worked with rabbits and cane toads. It may also be the same kind of thinking that wiped out your natural pollinators to begin with… some other problem was addressed by an invasive beast that killed the native bees and wasps.

The problem with ecosystems is the complexity. Make a tiny adjustment in one place and you can start a whole destructive chain reaction. Try to address the destruction and you throw the balance off in another direction.

The idea of exotics sustaining ecosystems is definitely not nuts. At some point, most parts of an ecosystem were new to that system and had to find balance points. IMHO the question is: Are *WE* wise enough to make these decisions? From what I’ve seen we don’t have too good of a track record.

By: David B. Benson

David B. Benson — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 01:50:42 +0000

I’ll take any sort of imported or invasive pollinator that can survive here. The native wasps and most of the solitary bees and bumblebees are gone.

By: Ford

Ford — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 22:50:56 +0000

It’s worth thinking about what we want from (semi)natural ecosystems. Ecosystems that have been influenced less by humans are certainly valuable controls for some kinds of ecological and evolutionary research. And if an introduced species threatens native species with extinction, I’d rather keep it out. But if they can coexist, then an exotic species that has tastier fruit, is prettier, is less (or more) susceptible to fire, pollinates crops better, eats more pests, etc. should perhaps be evaluated on its individual contributions to whatever ecosystem services we value most.

By: dcwarrior

dcwarrior — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 17:42:08 +0000

Sounds like the economic concept, the “theory of the second best” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_second_best – when the optimal solution isn’t possible, sometimes having a different suboptimal factor gets you closer to optimal than simply making all your remaining factors as optimal as possible.