Sunday, November 1, 2009

Of invasive plants and Big Macs

(A McDonalds in Cairo.  Your order please.  Hamburger or hummus?)

One of the first-hand observations I have made over the past few years is the tendency to homogenize the world’s biota, especially plants. Jacaranda trees native to Brazil are common as ornamentals in Nairobi, Norway maples native to Europe are common on the streets of eastern U.S. cities, and the bird of paradise flower native to South Africa is found in nearly every city in the tropics worldwide. The botanical situation reminds me of the proliferation of franchised fast food restaurants, where you can now find Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets in Cairo and Kampala as easily as in Louisville. The homogenization of biota and the homogenization of cultures disturb me.

I tend to bond with habitats like most people bond with their friends or their pets. I also bond with humans and dogs, so I am not totally weird. But I have a close affinity to every place where I have spent considerable time: the meadows of upstate New York, the riparian habitat along the San Pedro River in Arizona, the sagebrush community in Idaho, the rain forests of Costa Rica, and, of course, the forest around my home in Ithaca. When a real estate agent is asked to name the three most important aspects of a home’s value, they usually say “location, location, location.” Similarly, we biologists often say when asked to name the three most important elements in conservation, “habitat, habitat, habitat.”

Very simply, habitat is where an organism lives. It is comprised of the plants, animals, and microorganisms in a particular location. The species composition of a habitat is determined by many factors, but it includes the climate, the historical path leading to species’ colonization or evolution in that location, the interaction of species over time, geology, soils, and more. Each habitat on earth is absolutely unique—they each have their own physical appearance, their distinctive sounds of birds, frogs, and insects, and their complex blend of odors. I am convinced that if I were blindfolded and dropped into any habitat where I have ever spent any amount of time that I could identify where I was by simply smelling the air. The ponderosa pine forest of the Kaibab Plateau and the cloud forest of Costa Rica come to mind. The sounds would make it even easier—vermilion flycatchers along the San Pedro River, bellbirds and black-faced solitaires in Monteverde, cicadas (different species) in Ohio or Las Cruces.

Now, before my ecology friends jump all over me, I realize fully that habitats are not static. Habitats change over time. The habitats I love will not be the same a century from now. During that amount of time, some ecologists would say that the habitat has changed or matured; some would say that it has become a different habitat altogether. I am not interested in that debate. I just do not want readers to think that I think these entities are unchanging. I have watched the woodland around my house change dramatically in 30 years. Therefore, I am not arguing that we do whatever we can to prevent habitats from changing. That would be folly, and would be an unwise strategy biologically.

But I am arguing that we do what we can to allow habitats to develop along a more or less “normal” path. We can also argue for a week about what is meant by “normal” or “natural.” I am bored with that argument. Simply put, there are certain events or conditions that I define as “unacceptable”, and which I think are an impediment to following a normal path to change.

One of the unacceptables is the human-assisted invasion of a habitat by plants or animals that are native to some other part of the world. That is a no-brainer for me, and a reason I spend many hours per month eliminating Tartarian honeysuckle, multiflora rose, autumn olive, and common buckthorn from my woodland, four species indigenous to Eurasia. I know they were not here a century or so ago, so when I see them it offends my sensibilities. From a conservation perspective, I am not even sure there is a practical reason to eliminate them. Certainly, if they became superabundant, they would exclude native plants from growing there, with the result that some ecological interactions between those native plants and other organisms would be disrupted or extinguished. But when they are in limited abundance, their greatest danger may be that they will not remain at such low densities. I eliminate these plants because I can; the large Lumbricus earthworms that are so common in my part of the world are not native here either, but there is little I can do to diminish their numbers.

To me, there is a certain parallelism between what I observe in our native habitats and what I observe in cities around the world. When I am in a foreign country, the last place I want to eat a meal is in a Pizza Hut or a McDonalds (in fact, I guess they even kind of offend me here). And when I am in a forest near Ithaca, NY, the last plant I want to see growing there is a European or Asian species. In both cases, something is being lost and, although I can not put to words exactly what that loss is, I believe it is important.  But it goes something like this for me: The invasion of our landscapes with non-native plants is like a technician at the Louvre deciding to "touch up" the Mona Lisa with watercolors.  The average person would not even see the difference, but the art expert probably would.  The act of changing the Mona Lisa, the most famous painting in the world, would transform this important and beautiful object from what it was to a different piece of art.

On the other hand, are Costa Ricans or Egyptians offended when they see an American franchise restaurant in their cities?  Possibly not.  They might even think it is chic that they have this international influence.  I don't get offended to see a Chinese restaurant in Ithaca, but seeing a Pizza Hut in Alexandria bothered me a great deal.  Maybe I am uncomfortable because I fear that these restaurants, and these invasive plants, will not simply be an addition to what was already there, but that they will come to replace the original.  This creeping sameness makes the world less diverse and less interesting, but does that bother anyone else?
 
So I pull and cut and sometimes spray and my students think I’m that crazy ex-prof who would rather declare war on invasive plants than talk on a cell phone.  How weird.  And I eat rice and beans in Costa Rica instead of Big Macs, and I eat hummus in Egypt instead of pizza.  Is this what happens to us as we age?  We rebel at "progress"?  We cuss at the automobile for replacing the horse, or lament that email caused the extinction of the hand-written letter.  Or that friends were replaced with acquaintances. Or that family time was replaced with sitcoms.  I wonder, maybe I just have too much time on my hands.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

A poem by Wendell Berry

(This the first time I have ever used someone else's writing for my blog.  But this Wendell Berry poem, which I only discovered recently, resonates with me.)








Manifesto:
The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.


Manifesto: "The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" from The Country of Marriage, copyright © 1973 by Wendell Berry

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Swine flu: Avoiding everyone and everything

(DrTom is now prepared to go to the grocery to pick up some milk and bread, no longer fearful of the H1N1 virus.)

The swine flu, or H1N1 virus, is now prevalent and is highly communicable.  I don't want to get it, and either does Management.  We will get the vaccine when and if it is available to us, but I'm one of those who is not sure it helps anyway.  Therefore, there is only one real preventative action we can take--avoid other people at all cost.

The logic is simple, the plan is sound, but the execution of our strategy is not so easy.  Fortunately, we both work at home, so we can avoid the workplace and all its germs (and its gossip and politics, which are about as unhealthy as viruses).  We simply don't invite anyone over to the house.  If someone shows up uninvited, we just hide in the house and pretend we are not home.  I perfected this technique as a kid in Lima, when the Longworth sisters from next door would come over on a Saturday morning.  My brothers and I were always in our underwear watching cartoons on tv on Saturdays, and we did not want to be disturbed.  Those girls knew we were in there, but the door was locked, so we had the advantage.  After several minutes of  "we know you boys are in there", they would burn out and go home.

But on occasion, you need to have a repairman come inside the house for one thing or another.  Last week, the electrician was here to do some work.  Of course, he came from town, where the germs live, so I was nervous.  I basically stayed at the far end of the house and pretended to be working.  When he asked me a question about the wiring, I would yell something like "IT SEEMS TO GO OUT WHEN WE TURN ON TOO MANY LIGHTS".  And, at the end, "JUST PUT THE BILL ON THE TABLE IN THE KITCHEN.  THANKS".

This virus is a persistent little devil; it can apparently remain viable for up to two hours on any surface to which it is transmitted.  So even if you stay away from people, you must not touch anything that other people have touched for at least that long.  I did not go near the kitchen table for half a day after the electrician put his bill there.  Die, virus, die!  We leave our mail in the mailbox until the next day.  UPS parcels remain in the garage until sundown.  Stray dogs are given wide berth--you don't know who may have petted them recently.  You have to break the chain of transmission.  I no longer trust my wife, and she has not been anywhere.  But we eat in separate rooms just to be safe.

My immediate concern is that we are having our grandkids here for Thanksgiving.  Holy crap!  They go to school, and after-school programs, and guitar lessons, and soccer practice with dozens, maybe hundreds of other kids.  A veritable cesspool of dangerous pathogens swarming in, around, and through their contaminated bodies.  Runny noses.  Sneezes and coughs.  I'll be dead by Christmas.  I've suggested we set them up in the basement when they arrive to sleep and to eat; we could use Skype to see and hear them safely from upstairs.  I think they would do fine down there, but my wife and daughter think I am overreacting. 

And so it goes.  I continue to dodge all humans, and their possessions, and their air, and their space.  Remember the plague of earlier centuries in Europe?  People living in close proximity in cities.  We should learn from that experience.  Live in the country.  Find that deserted island.  Go backpacking alone until flu season is over.  Have supplies dropped to your rural home from a chopper, then let it sit for a day (or should it be "let it set"?).  Live simply (and alone), so others may simply live.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Biological prospecting in your own backyard

(The breast feathers from this dickcissel may be effective in treating ED.)

Picture this scene for a moment from 500 years ago, somewhere in Ethiopia or Arabia.  A man picks some ripe fruit from a plant we now call the coffee tree.  Inside the reddish fruit are two seeds embedded in a gelatinous material with the consistency of an 8-year old's snot in January, although it is somewhat sweet.  He removes the seeds, somehow dissolves the snotty material that coats each seed, dries the seeds, roasts them over a fire, grinds them up, pours hot water over them, and drinks the beverage so created.  Are you kidding me?  Although used originally only in religious ceremonies, coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the world today, with over 100 million people dependent on coffee for their livelihoods. 

Or picture this from about 2,000 years ago.  Some Native Americans, and the early Greeks as well, happened to suck on the leaf of a willow tree at the time they had a headache or a fever and found that their symptoms improved.  Later, the bark was soaked in water and the solution used as a medicinal.  It turns out that willows contain a chemical we now call aspirin.  Aspirin, which is produced commercially these days, is probably the oldest and most widely used medicine by humans.  What are the odds?

Now, I don't know what the trial and error process was for these early discoverers of coffee and aspirin, or for maple syrup, bee honey, silkworm silk for clothing, tobacco for smoking, or any of thousands of other such examples.  The facts are clear: humans have been exploring and investigating the fauna and flora in their environment for a very long time, resulting in many useful products that we take for granted today.  This continues today in a highly technological milieu in an endeavor called "bioprospecting", which I will explore in a future post.  But to the ancients, there was a logic to many of these discoveries.  For example, willows are found in low lying wet or damp areas, which is also where the fever or "ague" was prevalent.  It made sense to them that there would be a treatment for the ailment that was found in the same area.  We will employ that same logic below.

Given that I spend a lot of time in my woods, and I know the plants and animals pretty well, why can't DrTom discover a really useful food or health remedy on his own.  Those early humans didn't even attend The Ohio State University.  I have some ideas that might work.

1.  Collect 8-10 earwigs, mash them up with a mortar and pestle from your kitchen, and add a teaspoon of cheap whiskey (for heaven's sake, don't use a single-malt scotch).  Strain out the body parts of the insects, gently warm the remaining solution, and pour it carefully into an infected ear.  It could relieve ear aches. (See the idea here: earwigs to cure ear aches.)

2.  Gather up 6-8 red fruits from a flowering dogwood tree.  Mash them in your mortar and pestle (but washed after the earwig procedure), blend in some fresh deer pellets, and add a splash of warm water.  This slurry can be used to spread on your family pet's coat and it might repel ticks and fleas.  (The dogwood is the active ingredient, but dogs love the smell of deer poop, so they will allow you to apply this liberally.)  I would keep the dog off your bed for about a week after application.

3.  For men over 60.  Capture a live dickcissel (the meadow bird of the midwestern U.S.) and collect several breast feathers.  (Can you guess where I am going with this?)  Soak the feathers in cheap vodka for about a day.  Strain out the feathers, add a shot of dry vermouth and a dash of Angostura bitters, and shake gently.  Imbibe slowly during Happy Hour.  Should work for ED.  If you maintain an erection for more than eight hours, rejoice!, and then consult a physician.

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head.  If you can think of more, please write them in a comment to this post.  The right idea could make us millions.  But I want only "green" suggestions.  Notice I did not think the dickcissel liver would work, only breast feathers, which are renewable.  For those of you reading this who are economists or political scientists, if you remove the bird's liver, it dies.  Think broadly, dig deeply, and tread lightly.  Happy prospecting!