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Comment by cmrdporcupine | Hacker News Reader

Definitely. Obviously the rate of change is crazy higher than anything pre-anthropocene but... but it's more broadly just part of biology.

imho there's a kind of unfortunate essentialist philosophy which runs rampant among some "ecologists" and which has seeped into the public sphere... which believes that "nature" is a self-balancing system, and it is only our interference (as something "outside" nature) that breaks this. And this gets tied into the "natives" vs "invasives" dialog, as well. I think this is profoundly wrong. Nature is chaos. (Said in Werner Herzog voice, or something).

Consider that the ice age only ended just over 10,000 years ago -- which is an extremely short time ago in geological and evolutionary terms -- and every forest, meadow or natural space you see in (temperate North America and Europe at least) is very new and was "invaded" after the glaciers melted and as the climate warmed. In some cases quite recently.

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As you point out, the problem is that the rate of change is crazy higher than what almost all multi-celled life is used to.

I'm on board with your view that we are a part of nature, not separate, but when I think of previous speed-ups in rate of change (i.e. sexual selection to allow more rapid gene reshuffling, or epigenetic modification which allows more flexibility from the same genes) these have been spread across multiple species.

The acceleration we are currently seeing is basically due to the industrial revolution, which is due to people finding an net energy positive fuel source and leveraging this.

Nature is a chaotic system, yes, but chaotic systems have balance and tend to have semi-regular orbits.

By so drastically changing the rate of change past what any other living thing can match, we are on course to push the system into a new regime. Which is unlikely to be as pleasant as the one we currently enjoy.

I mean, see my point above about rate of change following the end of the ice ages. The part of North America I'm in, it's actually really young in evolutionary terms. And was really in constant intense flux even prior to European settlement.

And the locals here (Anishinaabe and Iriquois) also intervened heavily with fire and planting for thousands of years, too.

More broadly we're committing ecocide in much more terrible ways.

All that said, I tend to plant natives because they're usually (but not always) better adapted. Apples, I had to spray the crap out of and cut all of mine down. Pawpaws? Took care of themselves. Inter-specific "hybrid" grapes (with North American vitis ancestry) require almost no spraying, while v. vinifera is weak and requires constant intervention (I also do my own grape breeding). I had dwarf sour cherries bred in western Canada, and they can't handle the heat and humidity here. Native black cherry grows fantastic (I've thought about trying to breed with it).

However here's the thing. Among native plant advocates there's this kind of schizo thing. On one hand we're supposed to plant natives because they're better adapted for our environment. On the other hand we're supposed to root out the invasives because they're out-competing the natives and pushing them out. Huh? Which is it? Adapted for this place, or too weak to thrive in this place?

I'm not the first to point this out.

Can't they be adapted to fill a niche with little or no competition, which the invasive outcompetes them for?

Based on your comment, I think you're in my region (Ozarks). Hi!

My best choice was some fig trees. No pressure except from raccoons. No tending, watering, etc required.

> I think you're in my region (Ozarks).

Not quite. Upper great lakes (southern Ontario). Right at the edge (like literally within a few miles) of where these "southern" species (pawpaw, sassafras, etc.) can survive.

Figs can't survive the winter here without protection, unfortunately.

i think its more about having no natural enemies that hinder plants at going totally crazy.

for exampley if a tiger is put in the zebra cage the zebras have a problem and nothing will hinder the tiger to kill them all or reduce his killing to a natural balance where zebras have the chance to be population stable.

i have friends working in biology and they have no problem with new species in new regions if the adapt well and are prepared for the future or in other words make the ecology more stable.

but I get your point. many people are viewing it as black and white and have extrem opinions

> However here's the thing. Among native plant advocates there's this kind of schizo thing. On one hand we're supposed to plant natives because they're better adapted for our environment. On the other hand we're supposed to root out the invasives because they're out-competing the natives and pushing them out. Huh? Which is it? Adapted for this place, or too weak to thrive in this place?

Have you actually ever heard someone make the first argument? I haven't, because it would indeed be a very stupid argument. Natives are preferred because other species are adapted to having them around. Lose a particular tree, and you might lose habitat for many others - birds, insects, fungi... this can be a cascading effect and contribute to ecosystem collapse.

Yeah. It's a strawman argument (especially equating non-native with invasive). I'd much rather have "schizos" dogmatically enforcing the native flora/fauna rule than someone creating an ecological dead zone by planting invasive bamboo in their backyard.

If we can recognize monoculture is bad, we can also recognize why invasive species are bad. To your point about cascading effects and to be topical - this is the exact problem with honeybees: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266651582...

It's all fun and games until the honeybees get sick, the native bee population is catastrophically depleted (due in part to the honeybees), and there is no one left to pollinate.

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