Forget the Amazon, Save the Ecological Junkyards

We know that one’s trash is another’s treasure, especially for those of us who enjoy the occasional thrift store shopping spree. But who knew that one person’s heap of weeds is another’s ecological gold mine? An article in this week’s Nature titled “Ragamuffin Earth” plays with the idea of “novel ecosystems,” which are dismissed by many ecologists as unworthy of study.

Novel ecosystems are ecosystems not being used for agricultural or urban purposes but yet are embedded within agricultural or urban areas, or ecosystems that aren’t actively managed by humans but have still been heavily influenced by human activity. They often contain plant or animal species that are exotic to the area, rather than native, or contain species living in combinations that are not considered to be “natural.” The San Francisco Bay estuary is one example, which has more non-native species living in it—Chinese crabs, New Zealand sea slugs, Black Sea jellyfish—than any other marine area in the world. Brazil’s tropical savannahs, also known as the Cerrado, is another large region that has been drastically altered by human-set fires and the intentional introduction of non-native grass species. Most of the rivers in the Western half of the United States could be considered ‘novel ecosystems,’ with their original flow patterns altered by dams and ships dispersing exotic flora and fauna along the way.

These regions have never been the shining stars of ecology. But increasingly, some researchers are looking at these areas with fresh eyes and finding that like their wild landscape counterparts, such novel ecosystems too are worthy of conservation.

I was shocked to see that Nature pits novel ecosystems as roughly 35% of the Earth’s land mass. Does the overgrown patch on my neighbor’s Los Angeles property count, since she doesn’t take care of it and yet it features a daily rotating cast of blue jays, hummingbirds, and springtime wild flowers?

Proponents of novel ecosystems as Nature describes them would probably say sure; more traditional ecologists would surely say pshaw. But as this article points out, many ecologists who have turned their noses up at these degraded, or invaded, areas are coming around to value them, to some extent.

Why the change of heart? Among other reasons, “Ragamuffin Earth” discusses the role ecosystem services are playing in today’s conservation decisions. This refers to the fact that forests sequester carbon from the atmosphere, healthy soils prevent hillside erosion, and wetlands act as a filtration system for the water cycle. Particularly in response to a changing climate, ecosystems do things for us, and many “novel” ecosystems do these things just as well as or better than many “more natural” or pristine ecosystems, researchers are discovering.

Ecology’s lukewarm acceptance of these novel, dynamic, exotic—whatever you want to call them—areas within nature are perhaps a reflection of a bigger conceptual shift in our environmental thinking as well. As recently as 15 years ago, ecology as a discipline stood stalwartly by the biodiversity ethic that sought to preserve “wild” or “native” tracks of natural areas. Seemingly untouched wetlands and forests were, and to many ecologists still are, bastions of species biodiversity. These areas, like parts of the Amazon rainforest in South America or the Congo Basin forest in Central Africa, have typically been looked at with an eye towards preservation, or conservation. We must stop not only the rate of deforestation of these areas, say some academics and activists, but we must also maintain the diversity of plant and animal species that have inhabited these areas for longer than we humans have been keeping records of such things. To them, biodiversity is the gold standard. Extinction is the enemy.

Slices of land that are considered wild and are even quarantined from human access with a “Don’t Touch” sign—save for research purposes—can also be considered museum pieces, if they exist intact at all. But they are certainly not the majority of landscapes on the earth today, as “Ragamuffin Earth” points out, not even close.

Maybe it’s time to reconsider my neighbor’s weed patch, and the San Francisco Bay too: no longer ecological junkyards, but a bit of stylin’ shabby chic for this planet of ours.

Read On:

Marris, E. (2009) “Ragamuffin Earth.” Nature 409: 450-453.

Hobbs, R.J. et al. (2006) “Novel ecosystems: theoretical and management aspects of the new ecological world order.” Global Ecology and Biogeography 15: 1–7.

Map: Marris, E. (2009) “Ragamuffin Earth.” Nature 409: 450-453.