Well, I do think that the earthworm (or earthworms) is essential, I don't
see what the problem is in using collective nouns. As for its being an
invasive species, it is my understanding that the native earthworms were
pretty nearly wiped out during the ice ages and the European invaders filled
an essential gap.
And they are yucky. Some useful species, like hagfish, are incredibly yucky.
Why is this a problem? My point was that we have to focus on the value of
organisms, not their aesthetic appeal. In an earlier posting I discussed the
importance of fly maggots, aren't they pretty yucky too?
By the way, I work with jellyfish, which manage to be both beautiful and
yucky at the same time.
Bill Silvert
----- Original Message -----
From: Bruce A. Snyder
To: William Silvert
Cc: [email protected]
Sent: segunda-feira, 3 de Maio de 2010 17:11
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] State Microbes
Bill,
I agree wholeheartedly that drawing attention to organisms other than the
charismatic megafauna would do a great deal for biodiversity awareness.
There are many projects out there that do focus on these species, not only
documenting their biodiversity but also raising public awareness (e.g., I'm
running one getting kids to go collect earthworms). I think that we have to
be careful when communicating to the public: saying "the earthworm is
essential" is extremely misleading and facilitates the misconception that
there is only one type of earthworm (and most places in the US+Canada "the
earthworm" is an invasive species!!). Stating in the same sentence that
earthworms are "yucky" demonstrates the big problem we're up against, not
just for the public but also in the scientific community.
-Bruce
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bruce A. Snyder, PhD
Instructor; REU Program Coordinator
Mail: Kansas State University
Division of Biology
116 Ackert Hall
Manhattan, KS 66506-4901
Office: 136 Ackert Hall
785-532-2430
http://www.k-state.edu/earthworm/
On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 9:47 AM, William Silvert <[email protected]> wrote:
Good point, but when we talk about non-charismatic organisms we should focus
on your question, "what ones are not important?". In my unpublished article
to which I refer below I take the unpopular position that we really do need
to set priorities and not take the view that all god's creatures deserve
equal protection. Clearly the earthworm is essential and I think that the
public would be sympathetic to this yucky creature. But one of the worst
public relation fiascos in biodiversity conservation was mustering forces to
fight millions of dollars of development to preserve the critical habitat of
a sand fly -- even the scintists who had studied the fly couldn't come up
with a decent picture of its ecological role, it boiled down to, "well you
never know".
I think we need to focus on ecosystem function (or ecosystem services if you
prefer) rather than species. Our best chance for getting the public and
politicians to back environmental protection is to show what is at risk, and
not just take the view that all species must be protected (after all,
natural extinctions are common no matter what we do). Unfortunately the laws
on the books of many countries do not reflect this view.
