3 ms·

Because we're not quite there yet. And "pests" are pests usually due to human-caused imbalances in ecosystems. Addressing the root of the issue, such as biodiv

by myshpa 3y ago

Because we're not quite there yet. And "pests" are pests usually due to human-caused imbalances in ecosystems. Addressing the root of the issue, such as biodiversity loss, would solve a lot.

gottorf 3y ago
That's quite the romantic view of nature. My view is that nature is indeed red in tooth and claw, and that almost every species regard almost every other species as pests. Homes, human or otherwise, are virtually defined by the absence of undesirable critters. If cows could be rid of flies buzzing about, they would. Increasing biodiversity would most likely also mean increased diversity of pests. Would we not be bothered by mosquitoes, if we had a lighter footstep on the environment? I'm sure cavemen also got bit and stung.
- Modified3019 3y ago
  Funny enough that’s exactly what happens here in Oregon. Most of the wetlands were drained for farming, or just because we could. Turns out our selfish human geo-engineering had benefits to humans. Whenever we restore a wetlands, the area goes from “surprisingly low amounts of mosquitoes most of the time” back to “fuck I can’t go outside” https://www.opb.org/news/article/restored-marsh-breeds-swarms-of-mosquitoes-on-oreg/ https://www.opb.org/news/article/restored-marsh-breeds-swarm... There are ways to somewhat mitigate this through more intelligent wetland design methods, but ultimately no way to even mostly resolve the problem without more intensive control methods, which sometimes end up being pesticides.
  - myshpa 3y ago
    > Whenever we restore a wetlands, the area goes from “surprisingly low amounts of mosquitoes most of the time” back to “fuck I can’t go outside” You haven't restored biodiversity; you've simply flooded an area. You need to wait for all the animals to return and propagate. > without more intensive control methods, which sometimes end up being pesticides Yep, that'd be the opposite of intelligent solution.
- myshpa 3y ago
  > Increasing biodiversity would most likely also mean increased diversity of pests The exact opposite is true. https://www.caryinstitute.org/science/research-projects/biodiversity-community-ecology-and-dilution-effect https://www.caryinstitute.org/science/research-projects/biod... In ecosystems where predators are removed, the population of their prey, in this case, mice, often increases due to a lack of natural control. This process can lead to an increase in the tick population, as ticks often feed on mice. This is especially true for the white-footed mouse, which is a common host for ticks in the eastern and central United States. When the mouse population increases, ticks have a higher chance of obtaining their first blood meal from a mouse, which often carry the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. (less predators => more mice => more ticks) https://theconversation.com/as-biodiversity-declines-on-corn-farms-pest-problems-grow-45477 https://theconversation.com/as-biodiversity-declines-on-corn... As biodiversity declines on corn farms, pest problems grow "We found that communities with stronger networks – that is, more linked species – had fewer pests. Not only this, but network centrality was important; communities with several groups of highly linked species, including insects that prey on others, don’t have the pest problems that loosely linked networks have. Thus, in addition to species diversity, the strength of interactions among species within a community seem to be related to when and where pest outbreaks occur. This research suggests that practices that reduce diversity in cornfields will aggravate pest problems over time." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4646789/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4646789/ Decisions that reduce insect diversity and decrease the network strength in insect communities result in higher pest abundance. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821039116 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821039116 Tree diversity regulates forest pest invasion https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781118231838 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/97811182318... Biodiversity offers great potential for managing insect pests. It provides resistance genes and anti-insect compounds; a huge range of predatory and parasitic natural enemies of pests; and community ecology-level effects operating at the local and landscape scales to check pest build-up.
  - darth_avocado 3y ago
    > Increasing biodiversity would most likely also mean increased diversity of pests It’s not the opposite that is true but that the net effect is not that negative. Anecdotally, from my backyard food growing experience, biodiversity increase means more pests, but once more species come in, there comes a balance that exists in nature. Year 1 of my backyard farming, I had plentiful bounty. All my crops did extremely well, and I thought I was some kind of genius that disproved the decades of agricultural progress re:chemicals in farming. Year 2, was my biggest and most ambitious growing season and I could barely get anything out of it. The pests came, from insects to rodents and nothing survived. Year 3 and year 4 were my learning days. I introduced more plants to my garden, native plants, plants that provided food in late summers to next spring for the fauna, more varieties of food crops, etc. I welcomed everything in my garden, including pests. Eventually I hit a balance. Aphids suddenly affecting plants? The wasps are here. Rats and squirrels eating my strawberries? The owls and crows came to rescue. Slug problem? The neighborhood possum took care of it (though I had to put up a fence around some of my veggies for the possum). Overall I think with the constraints of the size of my backyard, I still need some proactive measures of pest control, but most of the time nature takes care of it and makes sure the problem is only temporary.
edgyquant 3y ago
I do not understand the fetishization of “biodiversity.” If an animal removes all others it will quickly begin competing with its own, evolving into new species. We all come from the LUCA after all.
- rurp 3y ago
  Scale matters. Species are currently going extinct at a rate orders magnitude greater than the historical average, due to humans. This breaks normal feedback loops and is absolutely something to be concerned about, even if you value all non-human intelligent life at zero.
  - ornornor 3y ago
    Wonder why you’re greyed out. It’s not something we want to hear but it’s happening regardless.
  - gottorf 3y ago
    > Species are currently going extinct at a rate orders magnitude greater than the historical average Nobody has a good idea how many species there are currently, let alone how many there were in the past and how many of them went extinct. Estimates for the current species count are from 3 to 100 million[0], which is a range too wide to be useful in this context. Of the mass extinction events in Earth's history, we may be peeking above the baseline rate[1]; the most severe statement we can make is that vertebrate mammals don't appear to be doing very well in recent times, which stands to reason, considering that Homo sapiens is by far the most competitive vertebrate mammal, doing a good job of crowding others out. But there's a lot of life and biodiversity outside of vertebrate mammals. [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160336/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160336/ [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/mass-extinctions https://ourworldindata.org/mass-extinctions [2]: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1400253 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1400253
- munificent 3y ago
  Think of biodiversity as the entropy source for all of the random number generators that drive biological innovation. When biodiversity goes down, there are fewer potential biological resources that can be tapped to solve new problems. You are correct that biodiversity has a natural upwards component from speciation. But the timescale (which you describe as "quickly") is many orders of magnitude slower than the timescale of the downwards component that extinction has. A species that took literally tens of millions of years to speciate and evolve can be wiped out in months.

by myshpa 3y ago

Because we're not quite there yet. And "pests" are pests usually due to human-caused imbalances in ecosystems. Addressing the root of the issue, such as biodiversity loss, would solve a lot.

gottorf 3y ago

That's quite the romantic view of nature. My view is that nature is indeed red in tooth and claw, and that almost every species regard almost every other species as pests. Homes, human or otherwise, are virtually defined by the absence of undesirable critters. If cows could be rid of flies buzzing about, they would. Increasing biodiversity would most likely also mean increased diversity of pests. Would we not be bothered by mosquitoes, if we had a lighter footstep on the environment? I'm sure cavemen also got bit and stung.

Modified3019 3y ago
Funny enough that’s exactly what happens here in Oregon. Most of the wetlands were drained for farming, or just because we could. Turns out our selfish human geo-engineering had benefits to humans. Whenever we restore a wetlands, the area goes from “surprisingly low amounts of mosquitoes most of the time” back to “fuck I can’t go outside” https://www.opb.org/news/article/restored-marsh-breeds-swarms-of-mosquitoes-on-oreg/ https://www.opb.org/news/article/restored-marsh-breeds-swarm... There are ways to somewhat mitigate this through more intelligent wetland design methods, but ultimately no way to even mostly resolve the problem without more intensive control methods, which sometimes end up being pesticides.
- myshpa 3y ago
  > Whenever we restore a wetlands, the area goes from “surprisingly low amounts of mosquitoes most of the time” back to “fuck I can’t go outside” You haven't restored biodiversity; you've simply flooded an area. You need to wait for all the animals to return and propagate. > without more intensive control methods, which sometimes end up being pesticides Yep, that'd be the opposite of intelligent solution.
myshpa 3y ago
> Increasing biodiversity would most likely also mean increased diversity of pests The exact opposite is true. https://www.caryinstitute.org/science/research-projects/biodiversity-community-ecology-and-dilution-effect https://www.caryinstitute.org/science/research-projects/biod... In ecosystems where predators are removed, the population of their prey, in this case, mice, often increases due to a lack of natural control. This process can lead to an increase in the tick population, as ticks often feed on mice. This is especially true for the white-footed mouse, which is a common host for ticks in the eastern and central United States. When the mouse population increases, ticks have a higher chance of obtaining their first blood meal from a mouse, which often carry the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. (less predators => more mice => more ticks) https://theconversation.com/as-biodiversity-declines-on-corn-farms-pest-problems-grow-45477 https://theconversation.com/as-biodiversity-declines-on-corn... As biodiversity declines on corn farms, pest problems grow "We found that communities with stronger networks – that is, more linked species – had fewer pests. Not only this, but network centrality was important; communities with several groups of highly linked species, including insects that prey on others, don’t have the pest problems that loosely linked networks have. Thus, in addition to species diversity, the strength of interactions among species within a community seem to be related to when and where pest outbreaks occur. This research suggests that practices that reduce diversity in cornfields will aggravate pest problems over time." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4646789/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4646789/ Decisions that reduce insect diversity and decrease the network strength in insect communities result in higher pest abundance. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821039116 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821039116 Tree diversity regulates forest pest invasion https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781118231838 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/97811182318... Biodiversity offers great potential for managing insect pests. It provides resistance genes and anti-insect compounds; a huge range of predatory and parasitic natural enemies of pests; and community ecology-level effects operating at the local and landscape scales to check pest build-up.
- darth_avocado 3y ago
  > Increasing biodiversity would most likely also mean increased diversity of pests It’s not the opposite that is true but that the net effect is not that negative. Anecdotally, from my backyard food growing experience, biodiversity increase means more pests, but once more species come in, there comes a balance that exists in nature. Year 1 of my backyard farming, I had plentiful bounty. All my crops did extremely well, and I thought I was some kind of genius that disproved the decades of agricultural progress re:chemicals in farming. Year 2, was my biggest and most ambitious growing season and I could barely get anything out of it. The pests came, from insects to rodents and nothing survived. Year 3 and year 4 were my learning days. I introduced more plants to my garden, native plants, plants that provided food in late summers to next spring for the fauna, more varieties of food crops, etc. I welcomed everything in my garden, including pests. Eventually I hit a balance. Aphids suddenly affecting plants? The wasps are here. Rats and squirrels eating my strawberries? The owls and crows came to rescue. Slug problem? The neighborhood possum took care of it (though I had to put up a fence around some of my veggies for the possum). Overall I think with the constraints of the size of my backyard, I still need some proactive measures of pest control, but most of the time nature takes care of it and makes sure the problem is only temporary.

edgyquant 3y ago

I do not understand the fetishization of “biodiversity.” If an animal removes all others it will quickly begin competing with its own, evolving into new species. We all come from the LUCA after all.

rurp 3y ago
Scale matters. Species are currently going extinct at a rate orders magnitude greater than the historical average, due to humans. This breaks normal feedback loops and is absolutely something to be concerned about, even if you value all non-human intelligent life at zero.
- ornornor 3y ago
  Wonder why you’re greyed out. It’s not something we want to hear but it’s happening regardless.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > Species are currently going extinct at a rate orders magnitude greater than the historical average Nobody has a good idea how many species there are currently, let alone how many there were in the past and how many of them went extinct. Estimates for the current species count are from 3 to 100 million[0], which is a range too wide to be useful in this context. Of the mass extinction events in Earth's history, we may be peeking above the baseline rate[1]; the most severe statement we can make is that vertebrate mammals don't appear to be doing very well in recent times, which stands to reason, considering that Homo sapiens is by far the most competitive vertebrate mammal, doing a good job of crowding others out. But there's a lot of life and biodiversity outside of vertebrate mammals. [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160336/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160336/ [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/mass-extinctions https://ourworldindata.org/mass-extinctions [2]: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1400253 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1400253
munificent 3y ago
Think of biodiversity as the entropy source for all of the random number generators that drive biological innovation. When biodiversity goes down, there are fewer potential biological resources that can be tapped to solve new problems. You are correct that biodiversity has a natural upwards component from speciation. But the timescale (which you describe as "quickly") is many orders of magnitude slower than the timescale of the downwards component that extinction has. A species that took literally tens of millions of years to speciate and evolve can be wiped out in months.