----- Original Message -----
From: Chris Perley <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 2:32 PM
Subject: Re: Ethical implications of environmental change
> Some of your interpretations are intriguing John - but I am glad you took
> the time to read Worster. Get a hold of the 2nd edition (1996 I think) of
> Nature's Economy - where the last chapter is an add on from the 1st (1987?
> or 1977? edition). He brings in Botkin, and others. I think it was
Worster
> whom someone (Budiansky?) accused of rejecting the new ecology because of
> assumptions of them being apologists for industrial laissez faire
> environmental managmeent, or some such.
I have read Nature's Economy and I thoroughly liked it. It is meant for a
general audience, and no in depth training in ecology is required.
It is interesting to note that much of the literature in ecology is not
readily available for general audiences. The literature is vast and I can
say with some certainty that much of the really good stuff is not even read
or appreciated by the trained ecologists. For instance there was an article
on root grafting published in the Botanical Review that most ecologists
probably know nothing about in terms of the main contents. For instance, the
phenomenon of root grafting is not restricted to trees of the same species
but actually occurs between species. It is often thought that individual
trees are disconnected from others, but this is not the case. One of the
implications is that individual tree longivity is made much longer, sharing
of resources is common, and the
community concept as a result can be observed on many sites. The old ideas
about competition between trees and other plants is also being discarded
because of the contributions of other species to the soil productivity,
etc., and in one case there has been a demonstration that birch root
leachates containing carbohydrates feed conifers. There is an excess of
production in nature where there is full site occupancy, but the opposite
happens in frequently disturbed sites.
> Two points. 1. Yes Odum is still within the deterministic/climax camp (he
> refers to "maturity"). And yes - since abotu 75 - the post Odum ecology
has
> emerged - with lots of implications to conservaiton management and EE.
Not
> necessarily summed up by applying just a "chaos" theory typology to it
btw.
There has been a lot of recent science regarding the role of interspecific
cooperation which further supports the community concept. Chris Maser has
written extensively on the role of the red back vole in the establishment of
symbiotic mychorrizal species in various conifers in "The Seen and Unseen
World of the Fallen Tree." There is the work of Trappe and others regarding
the effects of burning and clearcutting on mychorrizal fungal symbionts.
Then there has also been a lot of research in the area of arboreal lichens
which assist the forest in many ways providing the trees and forests are old
(see Cune's published papers on lichens). I wrote a paper recently that
reviews much of this research in the boreal and temperate forests of Nth
America and Scandinavia.
The only real place where the ideas you refer to appear are in conservation
biology, but their significance is overshadowed by the role that mature
forest ecosystems play in the maintenance of forest health and productivity.
Almost each time a new species is discovered in the forest it is usually
found in the very oldest of forest, especially for the lichens. The earlier
that a species invades an area in terms of time since glaciation, the more
symbionts and dependent species are found on these species. For instance a
lot of work has been published on tree species in England. The species
spruce for instance is a relative new comer in England and as a result this
species has the least number of dependent invertebrates when compared to the
others like Willow (Salix) or Oak.
Chris:
> And 2. Your reference to population ecologists (who see only the trees)
is
> part of a classic ecological typology with the (a) structuralist/"climax"
> deterministic/species interaction/autecology/population or community
ecology
> view (species and ecological structure orientation - arguably an emphasis
on
> the biotic) set against the (b) functionalist/materialist energy and
matter
> transfer/energy pyramid/"mature" deterministic/trophic analysis emphasis
> (producers, consumers, decomposers) ecology view (where materialistic
energy
> and nutrient dynamics are studied - ie arguably an emphasis on the
abiotic).
Not necessarily. The autecological study of species is integral to the
understanding and study of the larger coenosis which is often termed the
'synecology' of the community. It is a complex area of investigation since
ecology is a syncretic study of the interactions of species, organisms,
environment, genetics, etc. The autecology of species indicates which
environmental gradients and elements influence their distribution, in short
the silvics of tree species and their associates. It is an important study
that sets out what kinds of 'amplitudes' each species has in terms of
distribution, gradients, etc. For instance, the whole field of ecological
genetics is not meant, therefore, to be a subfield, but rather a
'groundwork' by which the understanding of various elements influences
distribution and adaptation. The field is very new, and not well understood,
but one of things that is clear is that species appear to change their
environments which means that 'species selection' according to Darwin is no
longer acceptable as a working hypothesis. For instance, the existence of O2
in the atmosphere is totally a result of photosynthetic plants. Prior to
photosynthetic plants the atmospheric oxygen was highly reductive, and
useless for most life that lives today. Darwin never knew this...but only
hypothesized that species are selected for by the environment through
'differential selection' meaning that a species either adapts or it
perishes. But the fact is that large communities of plants and animals
change the environment and create new ecological niches. The feature for
which the Amazon forest owes much of it's existence to is the large
evapotranspirative potential of the trees which recycle up to 50% of the
moisture in the Amazon. There is a group of trees we call the Brazil
nut...no biologist has yet figured out how it reproduces, and as a result it
cannot be grown as a domesticated tree. It will not produce a nut....these
trees are common in Costa Rica. Trees found in the Amazon do not close their
stomata, but the pines that live in the semi-arid forests can complete close
their stomata during drought. As a result the pines release lots of water
vapour only during high soil moisture, making wet periods wetter by
recycling, and making drought periods less dry....Cottonwood cannot close
their stomata and as a result are found in only the wettests sites in many
semi-arid areas....which they influence by removing soil moisture at
tremendous rates.....
It is because the new ecology of chaos is so emphatic that competition is
the rule rather than the exception that I find the whole a mess of
conceptual hypothesis, nothing more, unproven except in the very early
stages of a disturbance where you have all these 'increaser plants', and
often exotics that have no natural control agents. Some examples are
Knapweed, Tamarisk in the Colorado River, introduced birds like the European
Starling, horribly voracious frogs, etc.
How can an ecosystem be left alone and return to a stable condition if the
only thing that establishes is Tamarisk? You got to see this stuff in the
Colorado River watershed. It has displaced a vast amount of natural
heritage. There is Eurasian milfoil, and what about the European Carp in
Lake Winnipeg? The biology of unnatural invasions is so overwhelming about
permanent change that it would appear that the ecosystems will not survive
for long. In Lake Winnipeg the native aquatic life there is dissappearing at
an exponential rate.
Chris:
> Neither get quite the full picture - and both have been accused of being
> reductionist. The emerging ecology seems to emphasise chance, change,
> hierarchical systems (where both species processes
> [reproduction/recruitment/species dynamics] and more classical abiotic
> processes [production - from sun, energy & nutrient flows, consumption,
> decomp] are each acknowleged - as are landscape, hydrological and even
> social processes), patch dynamics, etc.
Hierarchical systems should in fact be termed 'holarchic' systems. The
problem of hierarchies is that something most dominate something else, and
this dominance must be long lasting, nearly infinite. The criticism is
therefore evident that well - if something is really dominating - then there
is no cooperation. For instance this term is only applicable when
considering natural hierarchies (individual wolf families, packs with alpha
males and females) such as food hiearchies and reproductive hierarchies. It
is my belief that competition cannot be the rule simply because competition
is only observed between organisms, not between species (should be rather
obvious). IF two species compete, then the result will always be extinction
in one species. Competition is not a term that could be applied to a forest
ecosystem. Synusae do not compete, they cooperate. The term is useless in
describing the role of orographic elements in moderating regional or
macroclimatic elements. In many forests there are local 'rainforests' due to
orograhic cooling...but within the same larger regional forest there is less
variation in climate. The influence of precipitation is striking. In one
local case there is a small xeric site where there is the only grassland in
a district that includes 1 million hectares. The grassland is situated only
a few kilometers from a rainforest where cedar and hemlock thrive. The
combination of a south aspect, a rainshadow, and soils has created a small
grassland of less than 200 hectares and surrounding this is a large interior
rainforest in all directions.
Most of these hierarchies are a result of scaling,classification, not of
functional features found in intact ecosystems. The proper term for an
organism carryout it's efforts to live is called competence, not
competition. The redheaded woodpecker does not compete with Starling. The
reason is very obvious. Starlings prefer to live near cultivated areas where
there is a lot of seeds (wheat, etc.). The redheaded woodpecker is a species
which does not re-use cavities. A redheaded woodpecker would never come
along and find a Starling nestling in a cavity and then toss it out (except
in a very rare circumstance where there were no trees capable of being
excavated). There would be no chance of a Starling nesting in the interior
of a forest. I have seen only Starlings near agricultural areas and cities.
They simply don't live in the larger forest here...
> You also mention Gleason (the most strongly individualistic of the old
> ecologists). Drury seems to fall strongly into his camp (- everything is
> based on one-on-one species interactions, with chance and change the
> underlying context of those interactions [yet Drury is no right-winger;
> rejecting what he terms laissez faire economics and laissez faire
> conservation management - the leave it to the "market" or to "nature"
> ideals]). But others (eg Pickett and White) are not so extreme while also
> being very much part of the "new" ecology. I did have a quote form
Pickett
> in a paper he produced in the 1990s (sorry, don't have time to search it
> out) where he speifically acknowledges the implications and apparent
> 'support' an "everything changes" reality gives to "industrial anything
> goes" apologists. He specifically raises the issue - not to reject the
> ecological reality - but to emphasise the importance of ethical
> considerations within such a dynamic paradigm.
The industrial paradigm of clearcutting versus ecological sustainable
forestry is firmly entrenched here. Foresters always attempt to justify the
clearcutting by indicating that they are mimicking natural processes. The
reality is different, and the tendency therefore is to pay lip service to
the idea of mimicking nature because what they are attempting to do is
simply leave small deferred areas outside the blocks. I have not found a
single cutblock here that was logged this year in which nature was mimicked.
I told them once and I will tell them again that they are mimicking
clearcuts.
Then there is the re-writing of the texts. They call the deferred 'patches'
'wildlife tree patches' even though they too will be cut down after the
block 'green's up', ie reaches 3.5 meters in height. It is almost a smoke
and mirrors game, PR work...Roads are termed 'wildlife corridors' and large
clearcuts are being created to conserve "interior habitat" but what they
don't say or tell is how future interior old seral forest is to be recruited
from plantations. In reality things have progressed from bad to worse since
this new ecology has been re-vamping the older style of longer rotations,
leaving lots of trees on the block, and dispersing cutblocks through space
and time. Forest ecosystem networks were scrapped, and old growth management
areas have been reduced to the 'non-contributing' forest (ie. inaccessible,
uncommercial forests). One company calls it's clearcuts 'temporary meadows'
to spite the ecologists in the room....even though there will be no shortage
of 'temporary meadow' in the landscape which is mowed down every 40-100
years. They make a complete mockery of wildlife management based on the
ideas of Odum and Leopold.
Every action that is perceived to be integral to the maintenance and
enhancement of wildlife has been termed a 'constraint' in the
quasi-ecological literature. The commercial forest is now called by the
government the 'working forest' and parks are not included in this
definition. One company (Weyerhaueser) insists that their version of
forestry is 'ecosystem based' yet they failed to satisfy the requirements of
an Environmental Impact Statement. The reviewers summarized their EIS plan
which involved a mere 6.5 million hectares in Saskatchewan as being very
comprehensive in conserving commercial tree species but was almost totally
lacking in any practices or plans to manage for key species like the
woodland caribou, old growth dependent species (see Kimmins et al).
The single most consistent failure in all their plans is the failure to
explain how old seral forests are going to be 'recruited' over the next 300
years. There simply is a complete failure here to meet any targets which
would be defensible based on reasonable or conservative assessments. Here
they started out with targets ranging from 50 to 75% of natural levels and
then due to industry pressure this was discarded.
Once the mockery of their justifications wans thin, they will resort to
excuses which are always economical excuses....
chao
john foster
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