August 17th, 2011
Invasive Species --- harmful or helpful?
CBC News' Sharon Oosthoek reports that the long-held notion that native species belong and non-native ones don't is increasingly meaningless and counterproductive, according to a group of 19 prominent ecologists from the U.S., the U.K. and Australia recently argued in the journal Nature.
"It is time for conservationists to focus much more on the functions of species, and much less on where species originated," Mark Davis, a biologist at Minnesota's Macalester College, and his colleagues concluded in the paper.
"Classifying biota according to their adherence to cultural standards of belonging, citizenship, fair play and morality does not advance our understanding of ecology," they added, noting that a lot of time and money has gone into eradicating non-native species.
"There has always been way too much ideology and not enough good science associated with the anti-non-native species perspective," Davis said in an interview.
"These guys are dead wrong," said Hugh MacIsaac, director of the Canadian Aquatic Invasive Species Network II at the University of Windsor. In fact, MacIsaac goes so far as to say the authors of the Nature article been "grossly irresponsible."
"You have no clear idea what you are going to get when invaders come into new areas where they have never occurred before, and unlike other forms of pollution you cannot stop the process once it begins to unfold. The best approach to prevent unintended consequences is to prevent invasions from occurring wherever possible," he said.
Please read the entire article here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/08/09/f-environment-invasive-species.html
Georgian Bay Forever is dedicated to protecting, preserving and enhancing the aquatic ecosystems of Georgian Bay. These ecosystems are in flux due to invasive species, climate change and other human impacts.
