{"id":2005,"date":"2010-08-29T13:29:41","date_gmt":"2010-08-29T17:29:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022\/\/?p=2005"},"modified":"2010-08-29T13:32:03","modified_gmt":"2010-08-29T17:32:03","slug":"the-scrubby-feral-and-untended","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022\/blog\/2010\/08\/29\/the-scrubby-feral-and-untended\/","title":{"rendered":"the scrubby, feral and untended"},"content":{"rendered":"

Important article from Nature<\/em><\/a> on the importance of looking at non-native, hybrid, “impure” ecosystems: Ragamuffin Earth<\/em><\/a> (July 2009).<\/p>\n

Excerpted:<\/p>\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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

No one is sure how much of Earth is covered by novel ecosystems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Important article from Nature on the importance of looking at non-native, hybrid, “impure” ecosystems: Ragamuffin Earth (July 2009). Excerpted: 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 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “the scrubby, feral and untended”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[35,22],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2005"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2005"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2010,"href":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2005\/revisions\/2010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}