{"version":"1.0","provider_name":"2022 Archive of RENATURED, Marina Zurkow's Research Blog","provider_url":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022","author_name":"Marina","author_url":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022\/blog\/author\/admin\/","title":"the scrubby, feral and untended","html":"Important article from Nature<\/em><\/a> on the importance of looking at non-native, hybrid, \"impure\" ecosystems: Ragamuffin Earth<\/em><\/a> (July 2009).\r\n\r\nExcerpted:\r\n
Most ecologists and conservationists would describe this forest in scientific jargon as 'degraded', 'heavily invaded' or perhaps 'anthropogenic'. Less formally, they might term it a 'trash ecosystem'. After all, what is it but a bunch of weeds, dominated by aggressive invaders, and almost all introduced by humans? It might as well be a city dump.\r\n\r\nA few ecologists, however, are taking a second look at such places, trying to see them without the common assumption that pristine ecosystems are 'good' and anything else is 'bad'. The non-judgemental term is 'novel ecosystem'. A novel ecosystem is one that has been heavily influenced by humans but is not under human management. A working tree plantation doesn't qualify; one abandoned decades ago would. A forest dominated by non-native species counts... even if humans never cut it down, burned it or even visited it.\r\n\r\nNo one is sure how much of Earth is covered by novel ecosystems.<\/blockquote>","type":"rich"}