Are the ecological impacts of alien species misrepresented? A review of the “native good, alien bad” philosophy

Goodenough, Anne E.

doi:10.1556/comec.11.2010.1.3

Cited by 128 publications

(101 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…Similarly, the concept of a "native species" in North America relies on a determination that a species has been present in a region over thousands of years, and implies an assumption of relative stability in species distributions (Goodenough, 2010). The concept of "native" is fundamentally historical and ignores the scientific knowledge that species have moved as climates have changed throughout the Holocene.…”

Section: Urban Environmental Planning and Biodiversity: The Us Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Change: Implications for the Assumptions, Goals and Methods of Urban Environmental Planning

Hill

2016

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As a result of increasing awareness of the implications of global climate change, shifts are becoming necessary and apparent in the assumptions, concepts, goals and methods of urban environmental planning. This review will present the argument that these changes represent a genuine paradigm shift in urban environmental planning. Reflection and action to develop this paradigm shift is critical now and in the next decades, because environmental planning for cities will only become more urgent as we enter a new climate period. The concepts, methods and assumptions that urban environmental planners have relied on in previous decades to protect people, ecosystems and physical structures are inadequate if they do not explicitly account for a rapidly changing regional climate context, specifically from a hydrological and ecological perspective. The over-arching concept of spatial suitability that guided planning in most of the 20 th century has already given way to concepts that address sustainability, recognizing the importance of temporality. Quite rapidly, the concept of sustainability has been replaced in many planning contexts by the priority of establishing resilience in the face of extreme disturbance events. Now even this concept of resilience is being incorporated into a novel concept of urban planning as a process of adaptation to permanent, incremental environmental changes. This adaptation concept recognizes the necessity for continued resilience to extreme events, while acknowledging that permanent changes are also occurring as a result of trends that have a clear direction over time, such as rising sea levels. Similarly, the methods of urban environmental planning have relied on statistical data about hydrological and ecological systems that will not adequately describe these systems under a new climate regime. These methods are beginning to be replaced by methods that make use of early warning systems for regime shifts, and process-based quantitative models of regional system behavior that may soon be used to determine acceptable land uses. Finally, the philosophical assumptions that underlie urban environmental planning are changing to address new epistemological, ontological and ethical assumptions that support new methods and goals. The inability to use the past as a guide to the future, new prioritizations of values for adaptation, and renewed efforts to focus on intergenerational justice are provided as examples. In order to represent a genuine paradigm shift, this review argues that changes must begin to be evident across the underlying assumptions, conceptual frameworks, and methods of urban environmental planning, and be attributable to the same root cause. The examples presented here represent the early stages of a change in the overall paradigm of the discipline.

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Section: Urban Environmental Planning and Biodiversity: The Us Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Change: Implications for the Assumptions, Goals and Methods of Urban Environmental Planning

Hill

2016

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“…Exotic species have predominantly severe, negative effects on the diversity and abundance of native species (Mooney & Cleland 2001, Goodenough 2010. Recently, however, potentially beneficial effects of exotic species have been identified (e.g.…”

Section: Exotic Species and Novel Ecosystemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exotic macroalga Gracilaria vermiculophylla provides superior nursery habitat for native blue crab in Chesapeake Bay

Johnston¹,

Lipcius²

2012

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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Exotic species often reduce the abundance or diversity of species in marine ecosystems, but some exotics may benefit native species, such as when habitat is enhanced. In Chesapeake Bay, the exotic macroalga Gracilaria vermiculophylla (Rhodophyta) has flourished and dispersed widely, yet the consequences for native species diversity and abundance are not well known. We experimentally examined the capacity of the structurally complex G. vermiculophylla to provide nursery habitat for the blue crab Callinectes sapidus in Chesapeake Bay, where native eelgrass nursery habitat has dwindled. We also examined ontogenetic shifts in survival across alternative nursery habitats. In field surveys, juvenile density was similar in macroalgae and eelgrass, but lower in unvegetated mud habitat. In field experiments, juvenile survival was positively related to crab size in mud but negatively in eelgrass, confirming the paradigm of a predationinduced ontogenetic shift from seagrass to unvegetated habitat. In contrast, irrespective of crab size, survival was higher in macroalgae than in either native habitat. Thus, exotic habitat-forming macroalgae can compensate for severe declines in seagrass nurseries, and facilitate the emergence of a novel ecosystem.

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“…Because ecological as well as other environmental and human-driven processes interact in complex ways, it can be difficult to determine whether invasive species are indeed a driver of environmental change or merely a symptom of some other events (Didham et al 2005. Furthermore, the positive values of non-native species for conservation are increasingly discussed in the literature (Ewel and Putz 2004, Kueffer and Daehler 2009, Kueffer et al 2010, Goodenough 2011, Schlaepfer et al 2011, triggering critical responses (e.g., Vitule et al 2012, Richardson andRicciardi 2013). Then again, native species are sometimes considered to be invasive (Valéry et al 2009, Carey et al 2012 in disagreement with standard definitions ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding misunderstandings in invasion science: why experts don’t agree on common concepts and risk assessments

Humair¹,

Edwards²,

Siegrist³

et al. 2014

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Understanding the diverging opinions of academic experts, stakeholders and the public is important for effective conservation management. This is especially so when a consensus is needed for action to minimize future risks but the knowledge upon which to base this action is uncertain or missing. How to manage non-native, invasive species (NIS) is an interesting case in point: the issue has long been controversial among stakeholders, but publicly visible, major disagreement among experts is recent.To characterize the multitude of experts' understanding and valuation of non-native, NIS we performed structured qualitative interviews with 26 academic experts, 13 of whom were invasion biologists and 13 landscape experts. Within both groups, thinking varied widely, not only about basic concepts (e.g., non-native, invasive) but also about their valuation of effects of NIS. The divergent opinions among experts, regarding both the overall severity of the problem in Europe and its importance for ecosystem services, contrasted strongly with the apparent consensus that emerges from scientific synthesis articles and policy documents. We postulate that the observed heterogeneity of expert judgments is related to three major factors: (1) diverging conceptual understandings, (2) lack of empirical information and high scientific uncertainties due to complexities and contingencies of invasion processes, and (3) missing deliberation of values. Based on theory from science studies, we interpret the notion of an NIS as a boundary object, i.e., concepts that have a similar but not identical meaning to different groups of experts and stakeholders. This interpretative flexibility of a concept can facilitate interaction across diverse groups but bears the risk of introducing misunderstandings. An alternative to seeking consensus on exact definitions and risk assessments would be for invasive species experts to acknowledge uncertainties and engage transparently with stakeholders and the public in deliberations about conflicting opinions, taking the role of honest brokers of policy alternatives rather than of issue advocates. NeoBiotaFranziska Humair et al. / NeoBiota 20: 1-30 (2014) 2

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Are the ecological impacts of alien species misrepresented? A review of the “native good, alien bad” philosophy

Cited by 128 publications

References 77 publications

Climate Change: Implications for the Assumptions, Goals and Methods of Urban Environmental Planning

Climate Change: Implications for the Assumptions, Goals and Methods of Urban Environmental Planning

Exotic macroalga Gracilaria vermiculophylla provides superior nursery habitat for native blue crab in Chesapeake Bay

Understanding misunderstandings in invasion science: why experts don’t agree on common concepts and risk assessments

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