bikefox
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I'm also a "crazy" educator. Everything archman has said is right on. Invasive species are the biggest threat to our natural ecosystems next to maybe habitat destruction.
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bikefox:I'm also a "crazy" educator. Everything archman has said is right on. Invasive species are the biggest threat to our natural ecosystems next to maybe habitat destruction.
You seem to have a pretty good grasp of the key problems. Yes, it IS complicated. But there are several "quick and dirty" methodologies that work reasonably well.Hank49:How do you define "invasive species"? First you would have to determine what species are indigenous in any given habitat, which may not be fully completed anywhere. I mean down to the insect/crustaceans and even mocroscopic organism which can greatly affect the food chain. Once that's complete, how often do you "police" the area to search for "invasive species"? Yearly? Every five years? And if you do determine that they're there, do you start an eradication program? How costly is that? And what about overlapping areas due to geographical proximity? How about the case of subtropical species of fish off the San Diego coast due to the warm water moving north from the El Nino? This must occur in rather massive doses every 20 years or so.
Unlike history, politics, and fashion, science rarely repeats itself. We gain more information over time, and the old data is far more difficult to forget. The scientific method and peer review is pretty stern about performing background research. Thus many scientists can be said to have a better grasp of history than historians.And finally, it seems that this concept has gone full circle from the bad lessons we learned about trying to INTRODUCE exotics to enhance a given habitat. We will now try to stop natural changes in predominate species that has occured throughout the history of the world in order to preserve what is there? Mother Nature hasn't accomplished this yet and maybe there's a reason.
The environmental change thing is more of a fatalistic viewpoint. Politicians and the lay public like it 'cuz it means they don't have to do anything. But nobody has any good predictions as to how that will operate, and in the meantime, ecosystems are getting thrashed. Blaming the bulk of this on "natural processes" is almost universally poo-pooed by every biologist that ever lived. Just look at fishing pressures, coastal development, deforestation, pollution... the list goes on and on.I'm a farmer and we've gone over the introduction of pro biotics into systems over and over. And basically everyone now agrees that introduction won't work without changing the environment itself, (temperature, salinity, nutrient balance etc) because whatever likes the existing environment best, will flourish. And as the seas change, so will predominate species in any given area. (some more than others obviously due to more or less constant envronmental parameters)
yeah, I know the guy that does a lot of the ROV monitoring. But that's the east coast population. I'm more concerned with the sightings in the Bahamas. The longer we can keep them out, the longer the native Bahamian ecology can recover from manmade damages. Healthy ecosystems are far tougher on intruders than damaged ones. Less chinks in the armor.Oh, and a guy I work with here says the lionfish have been seen off the Carolinas and as far north as New York for at least 6 years. Maybe too late anyway to get rid of them Archman. Sounds like they're established.
archman:Hank, stop asking me such complicated questions. Look at all this crap I had to write! Aren't there any ecologists down there you can harass?! My fingers hurt.
Well to be fair, a trend is nothing more than a popular course of action. Trends occur in every field as a matter of course. It's repetition of trends that science rarely engages in, unless they are particularly good ones supported by more recent advances. This continual forward progression separates science from most other disciplines.Hank49:. Science can be trendy. (as when they thought introducing species was good) (no offense) It's rewritten all the time based on new discoveries.
Rocha:Now, when we have so much evidence that this was a human-mediated invasion, I am all in favor of the kill'em all philosophy. This would be different if instead of lionfish, the presumed invasive was some goby that was not in the aquarium trade and couldn't survive in a ship's ballast water. Why? Because if it's got there naturally it has what it takes to get there, sooner or later.
I hope I have contributed to the dabate. Happy thanksgiving all!
Luiz
Yes, I know exactly what you are referring to. However, in the sciences we have a much better claim to this than anybody else. The scientific method requires full disclosure of experimental protocols, so that they can be repeated for verification. This is an enormously powerful too.Hank49:Every generation feels that they know more than the previous. We see this in our children and this can be very frustrating.
Well yes, it has changed. When one has more information available to them, he/she will statistically make better choices. The likelihood of failure drops. Look at Dr. Rocha's paper using genetics. That's a tool we didn't have 20 years ago. It allows us to better differentiate populations. We rarely use it without traditional methods to back it up, but few can argue against its value.Although today's scientists have MORE knowledge, acting on the knowledge only to find out later that it wasn't such a great idea after all, must be avoided or in a sense, it IS repititious. "With every new door that's opened, we find four or five more". It hasn't changed.
Ah, I see the difficulty right now (I minored in mariculture). Aquaculture is INCREDIBLY complicated. Yes, I know a lot of lab weenies think it's "merely" fish farming. They're talking out of their butts. They are not qualified to comment on the field; ignore them and the lay public. What you folks do never gets enough respect... it's not like you're growing corn.And although many marine bio PhDs have vast knowledge of what exists and perhaps how it came to be, few were successful at aquaculture. My point being, is if they know so much about Mother Nature and her ways, then culturing a single or polyculture pond should be a piece of cake. But it's not. If we can't even do this without glitches and hitches, how is it that we think we can control nature in her wild, natural state?