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  • From: "Joe Hecksel" <jhecksel@voyager.net>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Biodiversity
  • Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 10:40:03 -0500

Hello all:

I add my observations with some trepidation. Native vs. Non-native has
an emotion quotient right up there with religion and organic vs.
chemical.

One of the most compelling reasons I read favoring "native" species was
out of Britian. They contend that species become more integrated into
an ecosystem the longer it is a part of it. Microflora and microfauna
evolve to fill the new niches created by the new plant...but it takes
time.

Large plants can be likened to energy and protein pumps. A newly
introduced species has no entourage of ancillary life forms tapping
into the energy and protein that the organism is sequestering.
Visualize a waterfall spilling over a shear cliff; that is the newly
introduced species. Visualize the same waterfall eons later, cascading
down a pile of boulders; that is the same species with seniority.

***************************

Behold the lowly potato. It had no pests when moved 6000 miles (10000
km) from Peru to Europe. It outran them. The potato fed many Irish
and other Northern Europeans. Many of the potato's defence mechanisms
became parasitic metabolic load in its new home and were selected
against. The potato was the perfect crop and was over-planted. The
stage was set with the ideal conditions for an epidemic.

Enter Late Blight and Colorado Potato Beetles. The potatoes were
decimated as were all recipients who (formerly) had a monopoly
harvesting the potato's energy and protein.

****************************************

The following example is offered as a resolution for the paradox of the
exotic as a bully (out ran co-evolved life forms) and the exotic as the
fragile, hot-house flower.

>

--
Joe Hecksel
Personal Webpage http://my.voyager.net/~jhecksel




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