Edward S. Casey & Michael Marder, Plants In Place: A Phenomenology Of The Vegetal (2024)

Ok but can we talk about non-native and invasive species in a nuanced way?

There’s more to this topic than ‘native = good’ and ‘non-native = invasive and therefore bad’. I also see horrible analogies with human immigration, which…no. Just no. 

Let’s sit back and learn about species and how they work inside and outside their native ranges! Presented by: someone who studied ecology.

Broadly speaking, when talking about species in an ecosystem, we can divide them into four categories: native non-invasive, non-native, non-native invasive, and native invasive.

Because ‘native’ and ‘invasive’ are two different things. 

Native and non-native refers to the natural range of a species: where it is found without human intervention. Is it there on its own, or did it arrive in a place because of human activity?

Non-invasive and invasive refers to how it interacts with its ecosystem. A non-invasive species slots in nicely. It has its niche, it is able to survive and thrive, and its presence does not threaten the ecosystem as a whole. An invasive species, on the other hand, survives, thrives, and threatens the balance of an ecosystem. 

Let’s have some examples! (mostly featuring North America, because that’s the region I’m most familiar with)

Native Non-invasive

Native bees! Bee species (may be social or solitary) that pollinate plants.

And stopping here bc I think we get the point.

Non-native

Common Dandelion: Introduced from Europe. Considered an agricultural weed, but does no harm to the North American ecosystem. Used as a food source by many insects and animals. Is prolific, but does not force other species out.

European Honeybee: Introduced from Eurasia. Massively important insect for agricultural pollination. Can compete with native pollinators but does not usually out compete them.

Non-native Invasive

Emerald Ash Borer: Beetle introduced from Asia. In places where it is non-native, it is incredibly destructive to ash trees (in its native range, predators and resistant trees keep it in check). It threatens North America’s entire ash population.

Hydrilla: An Old World aquatic plant introduced to North America. Aggressively displaces native plant species, and can interfere with fish spawning areas and bird feeding areas. 

Native Invasive

White Tailed Deer: Local extinction of the deer’s predators caused a massive population boom. Overgrazing by large deer populations has significantly changed the landscape, preventing forests from maturing and altering the species composition of an area. Regulated hunting keeps deer populations managed.

Sea Urchins: The fur trade nearly wiped out the sea otters that eat them. Without sea otters to keep urchin populations in check, sea urchins overgrazed on kelp forests, leading to the destruction and loss of kelp and habitat. Sea otter conservation has helped control urchin populations, and keeps the kelp forest habitat healthy.

—

There are a few common threads here:

The first is that human activities wind up causing most ecosystem damage. We introduce species. We disrupt food chains. We try to force human moral values onto ecosystems and species. And when we make a mistake, it’s up to us to mitigate or reverse the damage.

The second is that human moral values really cannot be applied to ecosystems. There are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ species. Every species has its place. Applying emotional and moral rhetoric to ecology works against our understanding of how our ecosystems work. 

Third: the topic of invasive and non-native species is more complex than most of the dialogue surrounding it. Let’s elevate our discussions.

Fourth: If you ever compare immigrants or minorities to invasive species, I will end you.

There are more nuances to this topic than I presented as well! This is not meant to be a deep dive, but a primer.

nytimes.com

Opinion | To Save Life on Earth, Bring Back Taxonomy

Naming species has been a victim of a broad shift in our scientific priorities. But we need it more than ever.

The consequences of allowing taxonomy to falter are significant. Every year, botanists around the world discover around 2,000 new plants, a number that has held fairly steady since 1995, suggesting that there are still tens of thousands of plants to introduce to science. Three-fourths of the new species are already threatened with extinction. If we don’t have taxonomists to describe these species, we stand little chance of saving them — or their habitat.

With the threats of climate change, nuclear war and artificial intelligence bearing down, the act of simply itemizing our plants can seem trivial. But when I asked Art Gilman, a botanist, taxonomist and author of “The New Flora of Vermont,” why it matters, he paused in the careful way of a scientist. He gave no answer about curing cancer or revolutionizing food systems. “We lose the opportunity to know our world,” he said, finally.

link to pdf 

In an age that witnessed considerable support for social improvement, public schools often took center stage. By the 1830s, a chorus of reform-minded people began to sing the praises of free, tax-supported schools: Thaddeus Stevens, later a prominent Republican activist in Pennsylvania; Catharine Beecher, advocate of more educational opportunities for women; Caleb Mills, an evangelical minister who later became Indiana's leading common school advocate; and even notable Southerners, who faced the greatest opposition and whose efforts bore the least fruit. Enthusiasm for social improvement through education flourished. Since the turn of the century, countless pamphlets, speeches, reports, petitions, testimonials, newspaper editorials, books, and articles had promoted the importance of education in a republic. A few dozen educational periodicals also popularized the cause of learning by promoting a class-inclusive school system, especially for white children.

In Philadelphia, New York, and other cities, the editors of workingmen's newspaper - the voice of the skilled artisan minority - despaired over the fate of youth as apprenticeships declined and unskilled factory labor increased; they endorsed instituting a common system and eliminating the stigma attached to free schools. "I think that no such thing as charities should be instituted for the instruction of youth," wrote one articulate worker in the Mechanics' Free Press in Philadelphia in 1828. He favored free schools dependent not on "private charities" but "founded and supported by the government itself." One Ohioan added, "Unless the Common Schools can be made to educate the whole people, the poor as well as the rich, they are not worthy of the support of the patriot or the philanthropist." "Give to education... a clear field and fair play," said a recent immigrant in A Treatise on American Popular Education in 1839, "and your poor houses, lazarettos, and hospitals will stand empty, your prisons and penitentiaries will lack inmates, and the whole country will be filled with wise, industrious, and happy inhabitants. Immorality, vice and crime, disease, misery and poverty, will vanish from our regions, and morality, virtue and fidelity, with health, prosperity, and abundance, will make their permanent home among us.”

Born in an age when millennial ideals, such as universal peace and prosperity following Christ's imminent return to earth, influenced wide sectors of the population, the common schools became a useful barometer of the extensive social changes that transformed the nation before the Civil War. Cities, factories, and foreign immigration generated moral panic and social fears among many northern reformers, whose search for solutions to public ills centered on a more expansive public school system. Reflecting the contradictory passions of the reformers, schools not only favored greater access to literacy and academic study but simultaneously downplayed intellectual achievement by elevating the moral aims of instruction. America's ambivalent attitude toward the life of the mind and scholarship thus found expression in the nation's emerging school system, where character development and moral uplift took precedence even as lifeless instruction in academic subjects predominated. Setting a pattern that long endured, reform-minded citizens increasingly assumed that individual welfare and social progress depended on an extensive network of public schools.

william j. reese, america's public schools from the common school to "no child left behind"

Spring Woodland Flowers of Illinois poster by Robert F. Eschenfeldt (1930-2005)

I'm slowly collecting these gorgeous posters from the 70s/80s that the Department of Natural Resources put out. I've had luck with nature centers digging in their back closets

Trajectory of the tip of a crow’s wing

good god theyre giving the weevils adderall

na bachlóga

the buds

How to Describe Plants

Ghost Pipe Monotropa uniflora

"Unlike most plants, it is white and does not contain chlorophyll. Instead of generating food using the energy from sunlight, it is parasitic, and more specifically a mycoheterotroph. Its hosts are in the Russulaceae family. Most fungi are mycorrhizal. Meaning, through the fungal web of mycorrhizae the M. uniflora roots ultimately sap food from where the host fungi are connected to the photosynthetic trees. The clustered node roots of this plant are covered in hairs called cystidium. The cystidia found on these roots allow easy attachment to fungi hyphae, such as can be seen in ectomycorrhiza. Since it is not dependent on sunlight to grow, it can grow in very dark environments like in the understory of dense forests. The complex relationship that allows this plant to grow makes propagation difficult."