As much as I enjoy (and tend to agree with) Matt Chew's commentary on this list, I must express my disagreement with some of what he says below.
On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 3:28 PM, Matt Chew <[email protected]> wrote: > Labeling a fungus as an "invader" it is an absurd anthropomorphism. It is a > further, even less supportable one to call a fungus "invasive" as if > "invading" is an essential trait or characteristic of the taxon. While I was speaking casually, I don't think that using the word "invasive" implies an intrinsic characteristic any more than, say, "successful" does. A person's success in some endeavor is a function of both their traits and their environment; the same goes for invasiveness. Furthermore, there's no necessary anthropomorphism behind the word "invasive". For example, doctors may speak of invasive cancers. > No "Chinese" truffle found growing in Italy has ever > been "Chinese" except in name, and possibly as a spore—unless a person > knowingly moved it from Asia to Italy— in which case the motivation and > volition were the person's, and the relevant action was translocation, not > invasion. If there was ever any intention to invade anything as a result, > it was only and entirely a person's intention. Why is volition relevant? Also, we often say that X (a fungus, a person, or whatever) is Chinese when its immediate ancestors are from China. > Claiming this (or any) fungus causes problems violates any rational > conception of causality. The problem discussed in the article (one species > of truffle being mistaken for or misrepresented as another) is one of > unethical conduct by truffle dealers and/or taxonomic error by dealers and > or buyers. Truffles aren't "causing" anything. The article also describes Tuber indicum as becoming established in truffle orchards and, either by human error or competition, preventing the growth of the desired Tuber melanosporum. If that's not causality, I don't know what is. > Careless metaphorical misconstruction and "blaming" organisms for arriving > and > persisting in unexpected places actively undermines ecological > understanding, communication, effective research and appropriate > conservation action. Is there any evidence that research is being undemined or that anyone is "blaming" organisms? I agree that many control/eradication efforts are thoroughly misguided. > We should be interested in working out why any > specific translocation event results in a viable population (or not)…unless > ecology's primary purpose is to declare, "We hate this change, so we hate > this species!" One of the reasons I highlighted this article is that it describes concrete harms arising from an exotic species, unlike the all-too-common "we must get rid of this species because it's not from here" or presentation of the cost of control efforts as a harm caused by the species. -- ------------- Jane Shevtsov, Ph.D. Mathematical Biology Curriculum Writer, UCLA co-founder, www.worldbeyondborders.org "In the long run, education intended to produce a molecular geneticist, a systems ecologist, or an immunologist is inferior, both for the individual and for society, than that intended to produce a broadly educated person who has also written a dissertation." --John Janovy, Jr., "On Becoming a Biologist" -- ------------- Jane Shevtsov, Ph.D. Mathematical Biology Curriculum Writer, UCLA co-founder, www.worldbeyondborders.org "In the long run, education intended to produce a molecular geneticist, a systems ecologist, or an immunologist is inferior, both for the individual and for society, than that intended to produce a broadly educated person who has also written a dissertation." --John Janovy, Jr., "On Becoming a Biologist"
