Someone explain to a moron why invasive species are bad and not just survival of the fittest?
Aren't invasive species just accelerated evolution through the help of humans?
Why exactly do native species need to be protected when they're losing the evolutionary game?
I mean we ourselves (homosexual sapiens) are an invasive species that don't live in "balance" with nature.
Seems kind of hypocritical and arrogant that we decide who is an invasive species and who is not because we think Nature is unable to regulate itself.
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They're is nothing wrong with invasive species in relation to the larger global ecosystem. Spontaneous transformations in nature have occurred thousands of times throughout the earth's history. All environments eventually recover everything reaches an equilibrium. The concern is more so with human beings and they're reliance on stable ecosystems for our own survival. Our economies suffer from sudden losses in fisheries, we reap the losses when an invasive species tears our local wildlife and the trickle down effect that follows. The answer to your question is that invasive species are bad for us and we should tread careful when we mess with the source by which we reproduce our existence.
Invasive species increase local biodiversity ten times
Because survival of the fittest is a meme. There's survival and nothing else, the fittest is what we as capable observers delude ourselves because we see a niche evolve. It is neither guaranteed or part of nature.
Anyone who disagrees with the culling of invasives to preserve nature and let it change as it would without our intervention is a contrarian moron and not worth arguing with.
You know why invasives bad. Or at least, you would if you were competent enough to just use google.
>B-but INVASIVES GOOD
>CLIMATE CHANGE GOOD ACTUALLY
You're all so fricking boring.
>INVASIVES GOOD
>CLIMATE CHANGE GOOD ACTUALLY
it's boring when you just adopt the contrarian opinion every time
it's not interesting + makes it vastly less likely that people will actually take the bait
It's not bait. Invasives and climate change are only bad because of all the shit humans have caused.
>destroy the environment and kill off all the fragile native species
>NOOOOOO WHY ARE THE HECKING INVASIVES TAKING OVER!!!!! (even though the invasives are succesional species and not present in healthy mature ecosystems)
>build your houses right on the beach fully aware that the coastline is always changing due to depostion and erosion
>NOOOOOOOOO STOP EATING MEAT SO MY MILLION DOLLAR MANSION DOESNT FALL INTO THE OCEAN!!!!!!
Me personally, these issues do not affect me as they are not my fault nor are they my problem. I pull up weeds from my garden depending on how ugly they look and that's the end of my responsibility.
Your post is talking about several completely different things but just in case another moron opens this bait thread because they're curious about the topic I will reply as if you were being 100% honest and not a lazy shitposter.
>Someone explain to a moron why invasive species are bad and not just survival of the fittest?
Invasive species get this label for being artificially introduced to new environments, either accidentally or deliberately. Nature is extremely finicky and any sort of imbalance can have all sorts of consequences, it's not just "this animal went extinct but the invader took its place so nature balanced itself". It doesn't work like that.
>Aren't invasive species just accelerated evolution through the help of humans?
It's the opposite. You're killing off several specialists that thrived in their niche and replacing them with a single generalist that survives anywhere. Aside from the short term impact this can have on the planet as a whole, it greatly reduces the opportunity for new, different species to show up in the long run.
>Why exactly do native species need to be protected when they're losing the evolutionary game?
See the above points.
>I mean we ourselves (homosexual sapiens) are an invasive species that don't live in "balance" with nature.
No we're not. I shouldn't need to explain why. And by your own logic that's not an issue, it's every other animal's fault they can't catch up with evolution.
>Seems kind of hypocritical and arrogant that we decide who is an invasive species and who is not because we think Nature is unable to regulate itself.
Not only this has nothing to do with anything else in your post, nobody has said this, ever. You knew your bait wasn't good enough and started making shit up at the end. Please do better next time.
The balance of nature concept is bogus.
>This is not a one-off. Over 375 species of New World rats and mice evolved after they colonized South America, and rodents have evolved into over 130 species in Australia and New Guinea just a few million years after their first ancestors (presumably) rafted over on floating vegetation from Indonesia. And about eighty species of lupin plants evolved in the Andes in the last one and a half million years, after they invaded from North America. It would take only a modest 5 per cent of the world’s species to repeat the white-eye, rodent and lupin’s feats (say, generating twenty new species in different geographic locations in a million years) to double the total number of species on our planet.
>When the Suez Canal opened in 1869, it allowed tropical species from the waters of the Indian Ocean to move into the Mediterranean. And they did. Yet while 250 species of all kinds established themselves, there has only been one recorded extinction. Similarly, when the Panama Canal joined the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans in 1914, biodiversity increased on both sides. North America has morre birds and mammal species than when the Europeans first landed. And the addition of some four thousand plant species has added 20 percent to biodiversity and not, so far as is known, resulted in a single plant species being lost. Likewise, the UK’s twenty-three hundred additional species have not directly caused any known local extinctions.
>Large-scale biotic exchanges, in which the elimination of dispersal barriers enabled hundreds or thousands of species to be exchanged between formerly isolated regions, have occurred repeatedly during the history of the Earth, such as when the Panama land bridge formed 3.5 million years ago connecting the terrestrial biotas of North and South America. Vermeij [54] has shown that, in general, the number of species driven extinct by invasions was less then the number of species generated by adaptive radiations and evolutionary diversification of invading species in the fossil record.
>A survey of oceanic (i.e. remote) islands found that, as far back as records exist, they have been accumulating alien plants. In 1860 the average oceanic island had less than 1 introduced plant for every 10 natives. By 1940 the ratio was 1 alien for every 2 natives, and today the ratio is about 1:1. Despite all these new arrivals there have been very few extinctions among the original inhabitants, so the number of plant species on such islands has approximately doubled. Thus, although left to themselves remote islands tend to have rather few species (compared to similar continental areas at the same latitude), so many species have been introduced to Hawaii that it now has as many plants as a similar area of Mexico. Moreover, the evidence suggests that remote islands are by no means 'full' of plants, and that there is room for even more alien plants to establish, and thus for total plant diversity to increase: at the current rate the average oceanic island will have 3 aliens for every 2 natives by 2060. Do we have any idea how many different plant species might eventually be able to coexist on an island like Hawaii? No, we don't. Or, to express that conclusion in a more general form, in a report from US ecologists Dov Sax and Steve Gaines: 'we have a relatively poor understanding of the processes that ultimately limit how many species can inhabit any given place or area"
When you think of human influences as always "le bad", of course you dislike non-native species. Meanwhile, invasions are a natural phenemenon in the history of planet earth. What has changed is the scale of expansion and goes from places that would otherwise be impossible; such as from the southern hemisphere into the northrn hemisphere. Non-native species increase local biodiversity and might even increase global biodiversity due to hybridization and adaptive radiation.
Not specifically about invasive species, but you should read "Plant Conservation: Why It Matters and How It Works" by Timothy Walker. The book has a lot to say about in-situ and ex-situ conservation and the place of genetically modified plants in the ecosystems we inhabit. Specifically the ability of GMO plants to pollute and dilute the gene pool by hybridized with native species. This can be seen practically at a much smaller scale if you look at corn farmers and how it's difficult for growers to maintain an organic certification for example when the neighboring farm is growing Monsantos new fire resistant glow in the dark supercorn. This effect can also be seen in the pacific northwest with salmon stocking programs which damage the genetic stock of whatever wild populations exist by diluting them with moronic hatchery fish.
There's also a very interesting dynamic playing out right now with plastic waste in the oceans. Previously, plants and animals could traverse oceans clinging to wooden debris, but the distance they could travel was limited by the organic nature of the flotsam. Now that they can hitch rides on plastic waste which can float forever without decomposing, they can drift the currents as long as they can survive the conditions.
I would hate to live to see a world which is homogenously kudzu, norway rats and stray cats/dogs.
I often wonder about wildflower mixes changing the genetics of local plant populations. Didn't stop me from ordering seeds online though.
>I would hate to live to see a world which is homogenously kudzu, norway rats and stray cats/dogs.
That won't ever happen because of different climates and ecoregions. The boring (and therefore most realistic) answer is that it will just be a majority of native species with some non-natives mixed in there. All invasives go through a boom-bust cycle before they become integrated into the ecosystem, that is why lanternflies were everywhere two years ago but last year you had to go out of your way to look for them. Another example is some native butterflies starting to feed on Japanese stiltgrass.
why don't we just eat the invasive species
You see.
"Natural" means that we freeze the world so that it does not change from the point when we decided that it was "Natural"
Climate cannot change, animals cannot change, biodiversity cannot change, sea levels cannot change, river and lake systems cannot change.
Only people are allowed to change, nature is normal as long as it is statc from the point when we became aware of it.
What species of snakes should we introduce to Ireland?
None. Saint Patrick worked hard to be rid of them.
I don't get his beef with snakes.
He had none it’s just a funny little explanation for why there aren’t any in Ireland
maritime garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis pallidulus) would probably have the best chance of establishing themselves in ireland's climate
If OP fell victim to an IP wipe most vegan, paleo, creatonist, and dog hate posts on Wauf would disappear. This has happened before.
Feeding pigeons is the equivalent of feeding rats.
>Why is pouring bleach on the trees in my backyard bad and not just survival of the fittest?
>Why do they need to be protected when they're losing the evolutionary game?
I hope you're trolling and aren't genuinely this stupid anon
He's trolling/being purposefully contrarian, just hide the thread and move on.
I like knotweed. It's fun to cut and propagate.
Wauf REALLY loves this topic lately.
almost like it's the same few mentally ill shitposters spamming it huh
They disrupt and alter ecosystems, they displace or actively kill native species, sometimes to extinction, reducing biodiversity, they can become plagues and pests... The list goes on.
this still doesn't answer OPs question.
To further push his point- what gives human the justification of further interfering with nature? Such species dominance and disturbances happened many times before humans even existed.
The answer is feelings, the rest is rationalizations so you don't have to say it is about our feelings.
wrong, and I'm the gay you responded to. the only reason for 'invasive species' is to preserve what we like/find useful. There is nothing bad about hem, its just a threat to our comfort/existence. hence its yet another attempt to control nature, hidden beneath a facade of 'morals'
Ok? and I am
If you boil it down it comes down to our feelings, that's essentially what you yourself said. What we like or find useful is an expression of our feelings... We feel that something should be such and such, and we rationalize them afterwards.
"It should be like this"
"It is natural this way"
"It is benefitial for them and us" (them being nature/animals/plants etc)
It comes down to a bug in our minds that makes us forget that we are not divinity, seperated from the rest of nature, just another part of the natural processes on our world.
In the same vein, climate zealots are advocating from directly controling climate based on the notion that we have been controlling it by mistake thus far. Which leads to horrifying suggestions such as introducting a dust layer to our atmopshere to diffuse the sun.
But in the end, if we do or do not "conserve", do or do not "destroy" life will go on, it is all part of the natural processes on earth anyway.
>our feelings
feels are emotions, this is not an emotionally driven decision process. its a rational one hidden behind an emotional/moral facade. the only feelings involved are of the public which are being manipulated. some/most if not all of this is not even related to ensuring our survival but maximizing profits for certain individuals. this includes 'invasive species' and your example of climate change.
That's just semantics, seems like we are of the same mind so idk why the word games. I just felt like using the word feelings because I felt like demeaning the entire process because it is all so dumb in the first place.
its pointless to continue this if you think the semantics here are insignificant.
>it is all so dumb in the first place
It is semantics to dissect my flippant use of the word "feelings" in the context of this back and forth. It was meant as a dismissive descriptor, nothing else. We are of the same opinion yet here we are.
>back peddling
do you even know what semantics mean? like the word itself? also you think we are on the same page because you don't get the nuances, but you know, 'semantics'.
Dear lord you're insufferable aren't you? Must be a blast at parties and family gatherings. Bet you could make an enemy out of your own mom without even trying.
>ad hominem
well you got emotional
I stopped caring when I realized I was discussing with a teenager with a chip on their shoulder.
yet you replied, as if you have something to prove... anon
>It comes down to a bug in our minds that makes us forget that we are not divinity, seperated from the rest of nature, just another part of the natural processes on our world.
on a separate note i do agree with this statement
well almost agree since this 'bug' is called ego
Humans frick up the environment and when the only animals that are able to survive are the hardy invasives they get all the blame. For example carp in polluted water ways.
It's also an excuse for government overreach, see how the entire snakehead family was banned by the Bush administration due to fake news. Or banning a type of reptile and then they have the excuse to go into your house and kill your pet, like what happened in Florida a few years back.
>like what happened in Florida a few years back.
that moron knew what he was doing was illegal and did it anyway. deserved.
Yeah I'm not even a huge fan of police, but some people will take the mildest shit and run with it. Those snakes were almost all invasive and they accidentally shot one of two that weren't boohoo.
>invasive species only thrive in altered ecosystems
Categorically false, although the amount of natural spaces that have yet to be altered by human activity is so minuscule that it can be considered incidentally true.
Also, people who own predatory reptiles as pets are all psychopaths and their opinions aren't worth shit.
>Also, people who own predatory reptiles as pets are all psychopaths and their opinions aren't worth shit.
t. projecting Dog/Cat gay
Disingenuous bait threat, most likely made by a catgay and/or vegan.
Well dogs and cats are another example of invasive species. But for example why should I care if cats hunt the blue exotic moron bird that only breeds every 5 years to extinction? It clearly wasn't a species that could keep up in the evolutionary arms race.
I'm genuinely curious.