One major criticism of invasion biology is that the definition of "invasive" is most often an assessment of impact on commercial interests rather than ecologica

One major criticism of invasion biology is that the definition of "invasive" is most often an assessment of impact on commercial interests rather than ecological impacts. There are many situations where these are actually diametrically opposed definitions. Dandelions for example are extremely "invasive" but actually benefit local ecosystems by loosening soils and reducing topsoil loss. Because our agricultural practices are dependent on sterilized, lifeless soils these soil protectors are then seen as pests. This is actually the case with many "weeds". The most damaging thing you could ever do to soil is expose it to direct sunlight. The whole point of annuals is that they come up to protect the soil from the harmful radiation that kills the soil ecosystems. That's why annuals seeds can survive in soils for sometimes even decades. They're not meant to displace anything. They're meant to be there when there's some sort of "disturbance" (in nature this could be a fire or a mudslide or a windstorm that knocks over some important shade-providing trees, but in Western agriculture this is basically all of our farming) and kickstart the process of ecological succession If you let your lawn get overgrown by weeds it might look terrible the first year (tho I personally think it looks much more beautiful than the green deserts we spend so much money trying to maintain). But the second year you'll start to get some perennials and a lot less of the weedy annuals. Maybe some grasses will start. Eventually the soils will have developed so that they transformed from bacteria-dominated to fungal dominated and mycorrhizal networks will allow much more hardy plants to grow including shrubs and eventually even trees. These advanced soils hold up to 50x as much water and plants who've made mycorrhizal associations are much more resistant to pests, droughts, freezes, etc and have access to a much larger network of nutrients. So that means you'll have to spend much less time maintaining, watering, fertilizing, etc. In fact fertilization with nitrogen impedes the formation of mycorrhizal associations so, if your goal is a long term garden, "leave it the fuck alone" is actually a very effective strategy. Those weedy annuals depend on nitrogen that comes in easy to access forms but fungal dominated soils tend to have nitrogen in harder to access forms like ammonium (mainly due to the advancement of the soil food web into more complex organisms) so that means that the "weeds" will eventually work themselves out of a job (or at least until the next major "disturbance"). It's really a problem that solves itself and the more you fight that harder you need to fight. I might've strayed from the original point but I think there's a similar lesson with wolves. Wolves drastically decrease the number of disease vectors (e.g. rats or deer with ticks) in an ecosystem and also balance out other predators that take their place like birds of prey. The more we fight them the more we have to come up with solutions for all the side effects of their absence (e.g. large deer populations leading to reduced vegetation that stabilizes river banks or the increase in diseases)