http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/09/22/22greenwire-biodiversity-a-bitter-pill-in-tropical-mediter-89434.html
The above link (which can also be found in the Links box) deals with a prominent environmental issue facing ecosystems today: the re-assortment of species. Invasive species is a problem that is being seen much too frequently today, especially now that global warming is making certain ecosystems more inhabitable for other species.
In the article, we see that global warming and anthropogenic (man-made) changes to the Suez canal and the eastern part of the Mediterranean sea has caused a huge influx of foreign animals and plants to the Mediterranean from the Red sea. The increased temperature of the oceans has made it so that the Mediterranean can support the life from the Indian ocean, and the Suez canal has been opened up enough to the point that the species can cross freely.
This begs the question of whether invasive species is something that we should fix. Is it truly a problem? There is a lot of information out there about their dangers. Some include the fact that invasive species may rearrange an ecosystems food web because typically these new species have no natural predators in ecosystems where they have not evolved. Also, new species might be better equipped to perform the jobs of native species, and therefore they might out-compete them and drive the native species extinct.
However, there is also information out there to suggest the opposite idea. For instance, in the article above it is shown that though 80% of the fish caught by the ship in the Mediterranean sea were invasive species, there was not much being harmed because the new species were focused mainly in the warmer eastern part of the sea, which had previously been considered an "ecological vacuum". Basically the invasive species were taking up niches that were previously unoccupied. Also, there are some experiments conducted that show that, specifically with plants, increased invasive species only increases species diversity, because each plant has a slightly different niche and so all can live in the same ecosystem without serious conflict.
On this blog, I am going to show all sides of this issue, with supporting evidence to back up each side, in order to unmask the misconceptions of the science and to display the uncertainties.
The above link (which can also be found in the Links box) deals with a prominent environmental issue facing ecosystems today: the re-assortment of species. Invasive species is a problem that is being seen much too frequently today, especially now that global warming is making certain ecosystems more inhabitable for other species.
In the article, we see that global warming and anthropogenic (man-made) changes to the Suez canal and the eastern part of the Mediterranean sea has caused a huge influx of foreign animals and plants to the Mediterranean from the Red sea. The increased temperature of the oceans has made it so that the Mediterranean can support the life from the Indian ocean, and the Suez canal has been opened up enough to the point that the species can cross freely.
This begs the question of whether invasive species is something that we should fix. Is it truly a problem? There is a lot of information out there about their dangers. Some include the fact that invasive species may rearrange an ecosystems food web because typically these new species have no natural predators in ecosystems where they have not evolved. Also, new species might be better equipped to perform the jobs of native species, and therefore they might out-compete them and drive the native species extinct.
However, there is also information out there to suggest the opposite idea. For instance, in the article above it is shown that though 80% of the fish caught by the ship in the Mediterranean sea were invasive species, there was not much being harmed because the new species were focused mainly in the warmer eastern part of the sea, which had previously been considered an "ecological vacuum". Basically the invasive species were taking up niches that were previously unoccupied. Also, there are some experiments conducted that show that, specifically with plants, increased invasive species only increases species diversity, because each plant has a slightly different niche and so all can live in the same ecosystem without serious conflict.
On this blog, I am going to show all sides of this issue, with supporting evidence to back up each side, in order to unmask the misconceptions of the science and to display the uncertainties.
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