Invasive Debate?

ShadowMac

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I read this article and was not sure what I thought. It reads as an over simplified position on invasive species and native habitat conservation to me.


Here is a link to the article from TIME.com:http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20110614/hl_time/08599207758200;_ylt=Ah2rbCnTRnXckZOw3Q3JpZCs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNsMW8xdnY5BGFzc2V0A3RpbWUvMjAxMTA2MTQvMDg1OTkyMDc3NTgyMDAEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwMxMARwb3MDNwRwdANob21lX2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX2hlYWRsaW5lX2xpc3QEc2xrA2luYWdsb2JhbGl6ZQ--

I know a portion of what you do, Tom, is combat or study how to control noxious invasive non-native species of aquatic plants. What are your thoughts on the article?

Generally, I ignore main stream media's interpretations and summaries of research papers or scientific debates as they often broadly generalize, over simplify, and/or just plain get it wrong.

But since I have seen some mentions of things like this on The Barr Report, I thought I would ask about the article here.
 

Tom Barr

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This debate is more of terminology regarding the what the public uses and thinks, there's little debate in the Ecology field I would argue.

Each land manager will have a different set of goals and policy. This sets whether or not control is warranted and if funds are there.
Invasive species have secondary impacts and can degrade the over all habitat.

In some cases, over long time frames in natural systems, many invasives are reduced and out competed. So sometimes doing nothing works okay.
This is NOT the case in aquatic ecosystems, these tend to go towards monocultures.

Many times, managers sit and look at the invasives and do not do anything till it is too late and the cost for control has sky rocketed.
Then they say "If we'd only known........." after being told at the 1st sign by the researchers to do a rapid response plan to eradicate it.
This cost the least amount, prevention is the other aspect that goes with this. This saves fisheries, farmers, conservation areas, irrigation and water conveyance, recreation, many other aspects.

What is a weed in one place may or may not be a weed in another location.
Even if it does get there, it might not be able to establish, or reproduce, or spread.
Most of the ornamental plants used often are like this.
Some do escape and become weeds though.

The hardest part is getting people to understand the problem and why we should set aside resources for this.
It cost a lot of $ to control and manage them, it affects many economic issues and crop production.
Some are human health related, others degrade places we like an enjoy.

Still, the issue is more the TYPES of "invasives". Even this term is from a military rather than biological term.
M. Remanjek is one of the main Plant Ecology reserchers at UC Davis and he's quite good.

Here's some good questions to ponder:

http://faculty.washington.edu/reichard/byersetal.pdf