1.02022 Archive of RENATURED, Marina Zurkow's Research Bloghttps://o-matic.com/blog-archive-2022Marinahttps://o-matic.com/blog-archive-2022/blog/author/admin/Important article from <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090722/full/460450a.html" target="_blank"><em>Nature</em></a> on the importance of looking at non-native, hybrid, "impure" ecosystems:<a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090722/full/460450a.html" target="_blank"> <em>Ragamuffin Earth</em></a> (July 2009). Excerpted: <blockquote>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. A 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. No one is sure how much of Earth is covered by novel ecosystems.</blockquote>rich