Creating False Ecosystems

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by spacescience, Jan 19, 2005.

  1. spacescience Registered Member

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    So, I just finished this article on how there are these great new developments being created out in the desert in AZ. They go on and on about how you can create these amazing ecosystems that would never have survived without human creation of the environment. Then they talk about the diseases and other problems this is causing. This is terrible! Check out this article... What do you guys think?

    http://www.livescience.com/environment/050110_designer_ecosystem.html
     
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  3. Iris Registered Senior Member

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    It's fascinating, and a little scary, to think of the fragility of it. It all depends on water, and if you take the water away, all the mini-ecosystems will simply vanish, as if they had never been.

    And it's pumping the Colorado River dry, but ne'mind that, I suppose.

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    Let's hear it for Abert's towhee, and 600,000 swimming pools...
     
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  5. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, it's just the study of suburban neo-ecosystems, I thought it might be something amazing. It seems that humans cause a substantial decrease in the diversity of life, with certain scavenger-type creatures being the most successfull, like rats, cockroaches, crows, deer, racoons. Eventually these will adapt to the rapidly changing human environment- if we last that long. Goodbye to anything scary like bears or wolves, or herds of buffalo, it's kind of sad.
     
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  7. Clockwood You Forgot Poland Registered Senior Member

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    What are you talking about. Out in the midwest dozens of counties are just drying up and blowing away, with all the people just moving to a few big cities. That means philanthropists can buy the land for practically nothing and convert it to something like the 'Buffalo Commons'.

    Unless we find a really profitable way to use that land, the Bison will be just fine. Give it a few years and many Native American tribes will get their land back... if for no other reason than its worthlessness to everybody else.
     
  8. Starthane Xyzth returns occasionally... Valued Senior Member

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    There are many new communities of plants and animals resulting from human land use patterns, which would not occur in any natural habitat. Other examples are the dense, even-aged coniferous forestry plantations in Britain, which produce a canopy environment with a surprising diversity of invertebrates; and overgrown industrial spoil heaps, many well over a century old, which have selectively produced new varieties and communities of plants due to their high toxic metal content.
    http://slaggarden.cfa.cmu.edu/research/content/remediation.html
     
  9. eburacum45 Valued Senior Member

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    There are more trees in England now than for thousands of years in the past; trees were being grown for timber and firewood until recently, then the market was undercut by cheap pine imports;
    England is full of deciduous woods and forests that are no longer being harvested. This is the opposite to most people's impressions of land use in our country.
     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2005
  10. Starthane Xyzth returns occasionally... Valued Senior Member

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    More trees if you count all the commercial plantations, yes - as for "natural" deciduous woodland, more was lost in the 40 years following World War II than in the preceding 400 years.

    That trend has been reversed in the last decade or two though, I believe. I've planted a good few thousand trees myself, and there are thousands of volunteers who've done more than me...

    Ironically, the regular harvesting of deciduous woods by coppicing or pollarding is often essential to maintain their characteristic ecology and species mix. That's another thing volunteers do nowadays.
     
  11. eburacum45 Valued Senior Member

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    The landscape guru Oliver Rackham reckons we should allow the trees we do have to propagate themselves naturally. You can see this in action on the waste land that borders the railway system in Britain; long ago railway land was kept free of trees by the railway companies, but today trees have colonised the abandoned sidings and goods yards. A natural succession of species is developing- in many placces a semi-natural woodland has develped (contributing to delays caused by 'leaves on the line').

    Rackham suggests we should allow such self-seeding woodland to develop on wasteland whereever possible; there may not be any need for planting trees at all.
     
  12. Starthane Xyzth returns occasionally... Valued Senior Member

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    Of course, trees will colonise bare ground wherever they can, just as they do fresh lava flows or landslides - in many areas, however, rank grass and herbaceous plants can effectively shade out seedlings and make the natural establishment of scrub or trees very difficult. If you want to create a woodland in such a place, you need to kickstart the succession by planting saplings, or even standards a few years old, with mulch mats around the base to keep the other vegetation down until the trees really establish themselves (not to mention rabbit or deer guards to stop them being nibbled away...)
     
  13. Iris Registered Senior Member

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    107
    This sounds similar to what happens along the interstate highways over here. Many, if not all, state highway departments that have the maintenance jurisdiction over the rural and suburban interstates that run through their "turf" have an official no-mowing policy, and have also taken steps in many areas to deliberately plant shrubs that are "bird-friendly", which means that the side of the road is no longer your typical carefully clipped short pasture-type grass, it's got actual wildflowers and big ol' messy seed-bearing weeds growing in it.
     
  14. Starthane Xyzth returns occasionally... Valued Senior Member

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    That's the spirit! I don't see why marginal land within our transport infrasturcture shouldn't be put to good use, and highway verges are often virtually inaccessible to pedestrians. They can be corridor for wildlife right alongside our access routes.
     
  15. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    That is great and beautiful news. i too am gonna fill my little garden with native wildflowers this spring and summer. it is really important we all do wthis and enourage wild native species all over.
    The wildlife are suffering
     
  16. Starthane Xyzth returns occasionally... Valued Senior Member

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    Have you ever done any work with British Trust for Conservation Volunteers? There's a chance to make a real difference and meet people with the same interest. If you're based in Manchester, Duendy, there's a fairly local branch.

    The "voluntary sector" is a significant workforce in Britain these days; shows that people, as a rule, are not characteristically selfish and mercenary. There's hope for humanity yet!

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    Last edited: Feb 12, 2005

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