Mother Nature’s Melting Pot

[XemaSab]

THE anti-immigrant sentiment sweeping the country, from draconian laws in Arizona to armed militias along the Mexican border, has taken many Americans by surprise. It shouldn’t — nativism runs deep in the United States. Just ask our non-native animals and plants: they too are commonly labeled as aliens, even though they also provide significant benefits to their new home.

While the vanguard of the anti-immigrant crusade is found among the likes of the Minutemen and the Tea Party, the native species movement is led by environmentalists, conservationists and gardeners. Despite cultural and political differences, both are motivated — in Margaret Thatcher’s infamous phrase — by the fear of being swamped by aliens.

But just as America is a nation built by waves of immigrants, our natural landscape is a shifting mosaic of plant and animal life. Like humans, plants and animals travel, often in ways beyond our knowledge and control. They arrive unannounced, encounter unfamiliar conditions and proceed to remake each other and their surroundings.

Designating some as native and others as alien denies this ecological and genetic dynamism. It draws an arbitrary historical line based as much on aesthetics, morality and politics as on science, a line that creates a mythic time of purity before places were polluted by interlopers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/opinion/03Raffles.html

:popcorn:

[tabatha]

1. Yep, don't talk about the destruction that non-native

plants do. But, that is a very long topic. All I have to say, is the following quote:

"Biologist E. O. Wilson of Harvard says that next to destruction of habitat, the introduction of exotic species by humans is the most destructive activity that humans engage in. The richness of our planet's bio-diversity is being so thoroughly diminished, that ecologist Gordon H. Orians says our era should be known as the "homogecene", after the habits of homogenized plant and animal life that we are creating. "

and this:

"MILWAUKEE, March 28 (UPI) -- Kudzu, a plant scourge of the U.S. Southeast, is on the move north with a warming climate but its tropical cousins are of more concern, researchers say.

Dubbed by some the "stranglers of the tropics," the woody vines, or lianas, are choking trees and changing forest ecosystems throughout the tropics, a National Science Foundation release reported Monday.

Ecologist Stefan Schnitzer of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee said data from sites in eight studies show lianas are overgrowing trees in every instance.

"Any alteration of tropical forests has important ramifications for species diversity, productivity -- and ultimately the global carbon cycle," Schnitzer said.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/03/28/Strangling-vines-threaten-tropics/UPI-33811301361595/#ixzz1IUvqJwYF
"

[elleng]

4. 'homogecene' or attempted homogecene will be the end of us all, imo;

This goes for plants and animals, including homo sapiens. Anyone notice that Chinese and Japanese people have been gaining weight, eating our 'western' fat/junk foods?

Our 'brains' will do us in, imo.

[Curmudgeoness]

2. Maybe if you look at Mother Nature over millions of years,

these alien plants and animals will be beneficial. But looking at it from my perspective, I can only see harm coming from them. They are usually prolific, crowding out species that have provided food and shelter to native species for thousands of years. There are no natural predators to keep these aliens in check, so they continue to expand.

Sorry, I don't buy that there are benefits to them. At least not on the time level that I will see, or into the foreseeable future. Species will be lost to them, affecting other species that will be lost. One day, species will evolve to make use of these alien plants. But that will take time, and a lot of death and destruction before it happens.

[tabatha]

3. Yes, different habits and their species

evolved together over millions of years.

Invaders are not evolvers, they are transplants and they are causing changes in just decades.

[hatrack]

5. Strained analogy, I'm afraid. To wit: fire ants, zebra mussels, smallpox, kudzu, gypsy moths . .

. . . measles, emerald ash borers, Dutch elm disease, Sudden Oak Death, Formosan termites, tamarisk, Marburg virus, quagga mussel, sericea lespedeza, purple loosestrife, Russian thistle, cholera, wooly adelgid, tiger mosquito, citrus longhorn beetle, cane toad, brown tree snake, Amur honeysuckle, cheatgrass, kukuyu grass, Burmese python, tallowtree, European starling, lionfish, grass carp, white bass, farmed salmon . . . to name a few.

Not that he's wrong about immigration - he isn't - but he chose a lousy analogy with which to make his case. In fact, "lousy" doesn't even begin to describe it. Perhaps the experience of the Aztec or Mandan would serve to illustrate how smallpox "proceeded to remake" those societies.

:eyes:

[XemaSab]

6. Shoot, a fella' could

have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff...

:hi: