In Defense of Nature

 Nativist Methodology Reveals Dearth of Supporting Evidence for “Invasive”-plant Ideology

The alien “invasive” Bradford Pear tree (Pyrus calleryana) often grows alongside native Eastern Redcedar trees (Juniperus virginiana) in disturbed-soil sites, adding diversity to the landscape that better provides for wildlife. While the redcedar and the pear both make fall fruits that provide food for birds in winter, the redcedar doesn’t provide flowers for pollinators in spring as the pear does. Nativists need to look at the big picture so they can grasp the value that so-called invasive plants add to our developed (aka “disturbed”) landscapes. 

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

 

Four years ago, I wrote an article entitled, “Ecologists Recognizing Value of Alien Plants”. It referenced an opinion piece signed by 19 ecologists (every one of whom possesses a Ph.D.) who disagreed with the nativist take (the policy of favoring native plants) on so-called invasive plants.

 . 

https://www.crozetgazette.com/2019/02/11/blue-ridge-naturalist-ecologists-recognizing-value-of-alien-plants/

 

The next month, three people signed their names to a letter blasting me for my article.

 

https://www.crozetgazette.com/2019/03/12/to-the-editor-the-blue-ridge-naturalist-not/#comments

 

Their letter perfectly illustrates the methodology employed by any group that supports a weak cause. To help you recognize the tactics employed by people to convince you to join a fight not well supported by facts, I will provide examples from the above-referenced letter to the editor. For efficiency, I will refer to the three letter writers as The Triad.

 

The first clue that people don’t have much to say in defense of their beliefs is evident when they immediately attack someone’s personal integrity and knowledge instead of simply supplying support for their side of the story. The Triad started off their letter by writing that “[my] bias and manipulative language displays itself in every paragraph as [I portray] ‘plant nativists’ and invasion biologists as extremists with an evil agenda that will cost you, the taxpayer, millions of dollars in unnecessary and wasted spending.”

 

In reality, I had written about a current and ongoing activity to support my contention that “Critical thinking is a must for deciding invasive-plant policy to avoid harming wildlife and wasting millions in tax dollars.” I wrote that, “In the name of ‘saving’ the environment from so-called invasive plants, a movement has sprung up to remove Eucalypt (Eucalyptus globulus) trees from California [even though these Australian trees] now serve as the most frequented overwintering sites for the western Monarch butterfly population.”

 

https://milliontrees.me/2013/11/01/monarch-butterflies-in-california-need-eucalyptus-trees-for-their-winter-roost/

 

Another clue that people are pushing a weak agenda is when they lie about their adversary. Thus, The Triad went on to write that I cited “as a scientific reference an eight-year-old Comment [sic] in the journal Nature by Mark A. Davis and others.”

 

No, I had made quite clear that the article was “an opinion piece [emphasis mine] signed by 19 ecologists in the journal Nature” in which they argue that “policy and management decisions must take into account the positive effects of many invaders.”

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/474153a

 

Often, people arguing a rather invalid point of view employ flimflam. They cite scientific sources that are fallacious, wrong, and/or misleading because those papers support their viewpoint.

 

“Condon appears to ignore and does not cite the vast amount of peer-reviewed literature on the damaging effects of nonnative plants. For example, recent research published by Narango et al., in the October 22, 2018, issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science demonstrates that native plants are best for birds.”

 

Even if I were in agreement with The Triad, I would never cite this deceptive research that chose a forest-dwelling bird as representative of a species that can live in suburbia without human assistance, which it can’t. The scientists should have chosen a more-appropriate species, such as Northern Cardinal, American Robin, Gray Catbird, Northern Mockingbird, etc. Please see “Chickadee Chicanery” at this web site for a full exposé of this study.

https://indefenseofnature.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-carolina-chickadeegrasps-tulip-poplar.html

An American Robin, unlike the Carolina Chickadee, can find food in un-pesticided lawn grass, making it a suitable subject for study in suburbia to determine how well some bird species can survive among alien plants.

 

A ploy people often use when pushing a shaky narrative is overemphasizing the value of supposed facts that support their opinion. The Triad wrote that “Scientists have determined that our migrating birds require high-fat foods to fuel their southward flights in autumn. However, autumn olive berries are sugary sweet treats, the junk food of the bird diet. Smith et al. demonstrated that autumn olive fruits provide about half the nutrition of several types of native fruits, such as dogwood, at the time of year when North American migrating songbirds need fat, not carbohydrates, to fuel their long flights. (“Fruit Quality and Consumption by Songbirds during Autumn Migration,” Wilson Journal of Ornithology, March, 2007).”  

When I looked up this study, I found that it states that “Most common fruits [emphasis mine] on Block Island [where the study took place in Rhode Island during bird migration] contained primarily carbohydrates...and little protein...and fat. [emphasis mine]”

 

As the research paper’s authors were mainly speaking of native plants, this statement in no way supports the letter writers’ contention that the researchers demonstrated that Autumn Olive fruits were inferior nutritionally to native fruits—because most of the native fruits were primarily sugar (carbohydrates), too!

 

The Triad doesn’t understand the science of nutrition, which is “the assimilation by living organisms of food materials that enable them to grow, maintain themselves [emphasis mine] and reproduce.” (www.britannica.com/science/nutrition)

 

Sugar is a natural source of energy that’s useful for everyday activities. When migrating songbirds need to stop to rest and “refuel”, they need energy to hop around to find food, and Autumn Olive fruits fill the bill. These sugary fruits serve birds in the same manner as jelly beans (that are mostly sugar) serve a runner in need of glucose to continue exercising.

 

The research paper’s authors also state that “fruit selection by birds on Block Island was not simply related to differences in macronutrient composition between fruits...studies of wild and captive songbirds have shown that some species preferentially select high-fat fruits...or high-sugar fruits [emphasis mine]...”, which hardly implies that Autumn Olive fruits are “junk food”.

 

High-sugar fruits, such as Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata, seen here), provide energy needed to keep animals going about their day-to-day activities.

 

People will often accuse someone of wrongdoing as they themselves supply their own prevarication: “Condon mistakenly asserts that “nativists” (a derogatory term she uses for people who encourage planting only native plants in their gardens and in our natural areas) insist that all alien plants are problems and must go. [emphasis mine]”

 

That was not true. I wrote that, “Rather than critically analyzing each situation and dealing with it in the most appropriate manner, plant nativists (people who practice a policy of favoring native plants over nonnative) take the approach that demands removal of every plant designated as ‘invasive’ [all emphasis mine], no matter what function it is fulfilling in the local environment or how well it fills what would be an otherwise empty ecological niche.”

 

Also, I defined “nativist” in a way that literally describes the basic belief of nativism, which is hardly “derogatory”.

 

Nativists abhor Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica syn.Polygonum cuspidatum) despite the value of its blooms to pollinators, such as this Four-toothed Mason Wasp (Monobia quadridens) and numerous tiny bees. A so-called invasive plant, it has “stayed put” where I planted it decades ago. 

A sure-fire proof that someone doesn’t have a case is when they go off on a tangent that’s nonsensical: “While it appears that many nonnatives, such as Japanese knotweed, which Condon mentions in her recent article, provide shelter for animals, that shelter is not always useful and appropriate for many species. Take the bobwhite quail, for instance…that need shelter that allows them to move about quickly… [such as] clump-forming grasses whose structure offers ground-level spaces beneath dense, overhead cover.”

 

The Triad went off on a strange tangent here, since the point they make with bobwhite quail is nonsensical in the extreme. They are suggesting that somehow nonnative plants are supposed to fulfill shelter requirements for ALL animals, which, of course, is utter nonsense. Even those native clumps of grass they talk about are not going to shelter ALL animals.

 

When an argument is seriously lacking substance, people fall back on their credentials in the hopes that it will fool people into thinking they are experts: “Susan A. Roth holds a BS and an MS in Ornamental Horticulture from Cornell University and is the author of 10 gardening books.  William Hamersky holds a BS in Wildlife Biology from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and a MS in Biology from California State University, Hayward. Manuel T. Lerdau is a Professor of Environmental Science and of Biology at the University of Virginia and has a PhD in Biology from Stanford.”

 

Ms. Roth’s advanced degrees in Ornamental Horticulture in no way prepared her for dealing with the natural world because, until very recently, horticulturists mainly saw most wild critters as “pests” and native plants as “weeds”—all of which were to be killed if they found their way into one’s garden.

 

Mr. Hamersky’s degrees should have prepared him with a better understanding of how the natural world works, yet—based upon his signing on to this letter—he’s apparently unaware of the fact that environmental conditions determine where plants are found. Someone with real knowledge of the real world should be able to see there’s no such things as “invasive” plants, but rather environmental conditions that encourage these plants to do well in particular areas.

 

Professor Lerdau’s qualifications outrank those of Roth and Hamersky, which might fool people into thinking that certainly he must be someone you could trust. Yet, he signed on to a letter rife with unfounded accusations, insults, lies, and misleading arguments.  

 

Unlike the three letter writers who should be embarrassed by, and ashamed of, their letter to the editor of The Crozet Gazette, I can truthfully say that I can back up everything I’ve ever written.

 

NATURE ADVICE:

 

Use common sense to determine whom you can believe when people disagree about an environmental narrative. Who makes sense and who doesn’t? Who employs facts instead of insults? Who’s calm instead of angrily supplying emotional responses? If someone needs to tout a degree, is it a sign he doesn’t know as much as he’d like you to believe he does? And, most importantly, don’t buy into a false narrative just because a majority of people have done so. That’s how slavery and other evils have been able to persist in the world—people are afraid to swim against the tide lest they be severely criticized and perhaps embarrassed or even punished (as I have been by losing jobs). But sometimes, you must be brave and stand up against what you know is not right.   

 

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