ENTS,
I'm really enjoying this conversation. Jake and Lee provided the reasons that
I worry about invasive species before I could. I just watched "The Botany of
Desire" on PBS and it provided a great historical comparison of a society that
relied on a monoculture versus one that that was much more diverse. The plant
was the potato and the places were Ireland versus Peru. Everyone knows about
the Great Potato Famine of Ireland where something like one out of every eight
people died because they completely relied on only the lumper (I think that's
right?) potato. The Incas had and I guess still have somewhere over 5000
different kinds of potato. A pretty good illustration of why monocultures are
a bad idea...and invasive species, among other factors, are greatly simplifying
our ecosystems.
Doug
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