Invasive News, Notes & Musings: March 30th, 2009

It is the nature of our world to try to reduce everything to a 30 second "sound byte" even invasive species issues: Complicating community ecology; the Varsity.ca (March 30, 2009) — “Dr. Karl Cottenie believes simplification is the wrong way to analyze species richness;… He believes that the species richness formula ignores a great deal of information about community dynamics that is critical to a comprehensive understanding of community ecology.,, Cottenie believes scientists should use a multi-variate approach, breaking communities down into components such as environment, the number of species that can be found around a habitat, and the connectivity to other habitats. Only then can the complexity of a community be analyzed for the diversity contributed by a number of variables. By breaking down species richness into various sub-factors, Cottenie believes that more information can be extracted about a community’s structuring forces than by reducing the set to a single “species richness” calculation….he believes ecologists need to embrace the complexity they are trying to study, not hide behind the single, catch-all figure of species richness. To understand complexity, it must be studied as a whole.”

The problem of wicked inconvenience of temporal scale marches in and on with native ants exacting revenge. We do not know2 how much revenge an ecosystem may over time bring to bear on invasive species. The danger is using this idea to do nothing and to say everything is alright because in the end there will be a positive profitable out-come: Aussie Meat Ants May Be Invasive Cane Toad's Achilles' Heel; ScienceDaily (Mar. 30, 2009) — "Ecologists in Australia have discovered that cane toads are far more susceptible to being killed and eaten by meat ants than native frogs…scientists found, the Australian frogs are warier of the meat ants than the imported intruder and also quicker and nimbler at avoiding them compared to the cane toad, whose hops are shorter and slower due to their shorter shin bones."