Sadly, everything about Jane Shevtsov's brief referral is wrong in important ways.
"Now this is an invasive that causes problems! http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/adventure/2012/05/truffle-trouble-in-europe-the-invader-without-flavor/ " Labeling a fungus as an "invader" it is an absurd anthropomorphism. It is a further, even less supportable one to call a fungus "invasive" as if "invading" is an essential trait or characteristic of the taxon. It's a fungus. It has no apparent sense of place, no motivation to relocate, no volition to accomplish relocation. Maintaining biogeographical propriety is irrelevant to fungi. No "Chinese" truffle found growing in Italy has ever been "Chinese" except in name, and possibly as a spore—unless a person knowingly moved it from Asia to Italy— in which case the motivation and volition were the person's, and the relevant action was translocation, not invasion. If there was ever any intention to invade anything as a result, it was only and entirely a person's intention. Claiming this (or any) fungus causes problems violates any rational conception of causality. The problem discussed in the article (one species of truffle being mistaken for or misrepresented as another) is one of unethical conduct by truffle dealers and/or taxonomic error by dealers and or buyers. Truffles aren't "causing" anything. The intuitive appeal of biological "invasion" is obvious, but even brief reflection reveals the concept to be a reflexive category error. Careless metaphorical misconstruction and "blaming" organisms for arriving and persisting in unexpected places actively undermines ecological understanding, communication, effective research and appropriate conservation action. We should be interested in working out why any specific translocation event results in a viable population (or not)…unless ecology's primary purpose is to declare, "We hate this change, so we hate this species!" Matthew K Chew Assistant Research Professor Arizona State University School of Life Sciences ASU Center for Biology & Society PO Box 873301 Tempe, AZ 85287-3301 USA Tel 480.965.8422 Fax 480.965.8330 [email protected] or [email protected] http://cbs.asu.edu/people/profiles/chew.php http://asu.academia.edu/MattChew
