Ecological Restoration and Invasive Species

1. Ecological Restoration and Invasive Species Lauren S. Pile Spring 2011 Ecological Restoration

2. Problems related to INVASIVE SPECIESandRESTORATION Invasive species: • Maybe the first to re-colonize after disturbances associated with removal • Presence or dominance maybe part of the site condition leading to the need for restoration • Maybe the first to colonize after a planned disturbance even if they were not in the pre-disturbance community • May leave a long-term legacy after removal making restoration of the site difficult or can challenge management goals • Societal perceptions • What are they? Why do we care? What do we do? Isn’t the problem bigger than we can control? When do we give up?

3. Invasive Species,Culture, and its implication for ecological restoration • The fear of the invasive! – the sensationalism of environmentalism and the call to action • Xenophobia • Scientific fact versus personal judgment • Conflicting viewpoints on what is natural and what should be restored • Replacing fear with restoration • Non-native ecological replacements and restoration • Invasive species and climate change

4. FEAR of the Invasive • Scientific terminology is heavily loaded with negative connotations towards invasive species • Fear is used to give a sense of urgency spur people into action • Fear maybe used to further establish the field of invasion ecology in the eyes of the public and scientific community • Contributes to the growing culture of fear • “Scientists and the U.S. Government must work together to implement a comprehensive approach to biosecurity that addresses not only bioterrorism, but also the more common incursions of invasive alien species. This approach should also address the potential for the deliberate use of invasive alien species as agents of bioterrorism.” ~Bioinvasions, bioterrorism, and biosecurity(Laura Meyerson & Jamie Reaser 2003)

5. XENOPHOBIA: fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign • Native plant societies and advocates have been equated to Nazi Germany • Horticultural and landscape gardening policies of the Third Reich were designed to purge German nature of any foreign influences • “Judging species according to their place of origin is tantamount to judging people by their religion, nationality, or skin color.” (Lugo 1992) • Environmental historians personify and nationalize invasive species (John McNeill) • Boll weevil = “well-documented alien from Mexico” • Fire ant = “fierce Brazilian” • Gypsy moth = “unruly guest from France” • Debate over nomenclature • Nonindigenous was received as the “most neutral, inclusive, and unambiguous term.”

6. This is an educational website by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for children identify alien species Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources http://dnr.wi.gov/org/caer/ce/eek/earth/aliens.htm

7. SCIENCE versus JUDGMENT • Sometimes value judgments are made by scientists with no distinction between the changes in the natural world that they have documented and the judgments they make about the acceptability of such changes • Scientists must be careful both in communicating scientific knowledge and in making clear when value judgments are passed as scientific results • Any characterization that any and all nonindigenous species are good or bad is a value judgment, not science

8. Conflicting view-points on Restoration and Invasive species Invasive species are natural Invasive species require management • Biological invasions are natural and necessary for the persistence of life • Extinctions and invasions have occurred long before humans existed • Species rates change even on the scale of years and decades • Species invasions are natural, but it is their current rate of occurrence and the distances they transverse that is the concern • “What is natural is morally acceptable”  murder, auto accidents, and species extinctions are natural or normal, but they are clearly neither moral or acceptable

9. Replacing FEAR with RESTORATION • Restorationists may not seem fearful about invasives because they have greater fears: • Land fragmentation, development, fire suppression, illegal plant collection • The language of restoration is more positive and effectively communicates the importance of restoration endeavors • Ecological, functional, humanistic, integrative • Invasive species management becomes a stepping stone to achieving broader goals and values • “… an ecosystem would be restored, not a list of species eliminated.” (Woodall 2000) • Invasive species managers usually focus their efforts on taking things out of the landscape, the end goal of restorationists is to make the landscape whole again by putting things back together

10. Rather than feeling victimized by invasion and the fear generated from the losses that might result, active engagement can empower communities to work toward positive new trajectories Embrace humans with nature instead of humans against nature Active community involvement

11. Non-native ecological REPLACEMENTS:Translocations for Ecological Restoration • Translocation can compensate for a lack of dispersal opportunities • Translocation might be necessary where the original habitat may have been extensively modified, and where restoration due to multiple factors is infeasible • Replace an extinct species with an appropriate analog species • Replacement of extinct New Zealand quail with Australian brown quail increases ecological restoration opportunities • Analog species can replace the contribution that an extinct species may have provided to ecological function • May result in a more complete ecological restoration • Replacement with an analog species is unpredictable and have the same damaging impacts of other non-native species • “Rewilding” (Donlan 2005 & 2006) of North America with mega fauna replacements • Camels, lions, elephants

12. The disappearance of invasive species with CLIMATE CHANGE: a restoration opportunity • Climate change may also affect the distribution of non-native invasive species • Invasive plants respond positively to disturbance and some show enhanced competiveness in rising CO2 levels • However some may become less competitive in certain areas due to climate change  RESTORATION OPPORTUNITIES • “Transformative” Restoration – in which novel species are introduced to replace invasive species • Indigenous to the broader biome or ecoregion • Non-invasive • Capable of sustaining native fauna • Well-suited to the new climate conditions

13. Works Cited • Bradley, B.A. and D.S. Wilcove. 2009. When invasive plants disappear:Transformative restoration possibilities in the western United States resulting from climate change. Restoration Ecology 17(5): 715-721. • Coates, P. 2006. American perceptions of immigrant and invasive species: Strangers on the land. University of California Press: Berkeley. • Lodge, D.M. and K. Shrader-Frechette. 2002. Non-indigenous species: Ecological explanation, environmental ethics, and public policy. Conservation Biology 17(1): 31-37. • Muphy, S.D. 2005. Concurrent management of exotic species and initial restoration efforts in forests. Restoration Ecology 13(4): 584-593. • Parker, K.A., Seabrook-Davidson, M. and J.G. Ewan. 2010. Opportunities for nonnative ecological replacements in ecosystem restoration. Restoration Ecology 18(3): 269-273.