nep369: Introducing a new Species to Control Another

[David]

nep369
Junior Member

member is offline



N. sibuyanensis x x trusmadiensis



Joined: Jul 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 73
Location: Kaneohe HI
Introducing a new Species to Control Another
« Thread Started on Jun 4, 2008, 8:55am »
Earlier today, and last night I was observing my plants and came to the realization that my plants have been filling in a niche that doesn't exist here because it wasn't originally needed, I believe that Rainforest had also mentioned something similar on LHNN in his block on the forum. My observation being that particular species/hybrids tend to prey on certain species of prey, which here that diversity is ever increasing along the terms of small vertebrates and invertebrates that are being introduced on purpose or not. We can't control everything that comes in on the boats, planes etc. why don't we consider the introduction of hybrids or species of Nepenthes to Hawaii which in turn would put a control on small pests and give nepenthes another safe haven for them to continue after all the plants being introduced would come from cultivation.

ex. of Nepenthes and prey:
N. sibuyanensis x truncata has been feeding on primarily small to large ****roaches, geckos, Cuban anoles young, small moths, ants (multiple species),and other small gnats/flying insects.

N. Rokko has been feeding on small flying insects, moderate Cuban anoles (hatchlings up to 4"-5" inches without tail), and loads of ants.

I will be starting a tally on prey from a select few plants that will have to fend for themselves without fertilizing, to get a better look of what they are eating and amounts of what they are eating.

I'd like to here others thoughts on the matter, should or shouldn't why to or why not.

« Last Edit: Jun 4, 2008, 9:01am by nep369 »Link to Post - Back to Top Loggedgot nepenthes? rsivertsen
New Member

member is offline





Joined: Apr 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 15
Location: Northwest New Jersey, (USA)
Re: Introducing a new Species to Control Another
« Reply #1 on Jun 4, 2008, 9:16am »
VERY touchy subject! Two wrongs do NOT make a right, and all that conservationism rhetoric.

Yet we live in this life called "Planet Reality"! West Nile disease is NOT indigenous to the northeast coast of the USA, but the fact is that it's here! What do we do as intelligent creatures? Hmm, food for thought! ... I'm developing an Aldrovanda farm in efforts to see if they can provide a natural and effective control and balance against those parasites that occupy shallow dystrophic pools where no other natural predator could occupy, and go into decline when its food source (mosquito larvae) also go into decline without presenting a threat to the populations of indigenous species of plants or animals.

There's NO shortage of well intentioned efforts to control one species with another that resulted in an environmental disaster. Florida and Hawaii may top the lists of those examples!

- Rich
Link to Post - Back to Top LoggedI'm not suffering from insanity, ... rather enjoying it actually! alienfx
Full Member

member is offline





Joined: Apr 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 103
Location: Klang,Malaysia
Re: Introducing a new Species to Control Another
« Reply #2 on Jun 4, 2008, 10:52am »
Well,this is the reason i bought nep 2 years ago.There is too much insects and pests at my place until the pitchers start to die once its full of insects.Another things is nep dont catch the white fly which is the worst pest im facing.

Some other cp's i have does catch white flies but just a few.Wish i can kill those white flies.
Link to Post - Back to Top Logged nep369
Junior Member

member is offline



N. sibuyanensis x x trusmadiensis



Joined: Jul 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 73
Location: Kaneohe HI
Re: Introducing a new Species to Control Another
« Reply #3 on Jun 4, 2008, 3:08pm »
The biggest difference here though alienfx is that you live in Nepenthes habitat, I don't even though the climate is quite similar the Nepenthes never made it here with out man to get it here though I was just wondering how Ohia got to the islands being that it's a Eucalyptus species, which as far as I knew where all native to Australia and New Zealand and maybe Papua and friends?

Thanks for the input, apparently you don't have the orchid white fly, over there small little rice looking things about a tenth of the size though.
Link to Post - Back to Top Loggedgot nepenthes? arvin555
Junior Member

member is offline





Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 64
Location: Phillipines
Re: Introducing a new Species to Control Another
« Reply #4 on Jun 5, 2008, 12:31am »
Couldn't resist posting, as Rich mentioned, it is a touchy subject, and of interest as well. My two cents....
I am a believer in nature's ability to acheive equilibrium by herself, so the short answer is to leave things be. I agree that two wrongs does not make a right. Human activity might have introduced alien species to an area, adding another alien species on purpose is probably a bigger wrong. I was surprised for instance that you guys have poison arrow frogs there, and I understand, introduced to combat something else?

Going to specifics, Nepenthes are not found in your islands, and we can assume that they will die without proper care. Then again I saw a picture of a big Nep growing from soil and climbing up a tree, outdoors which means they can adapt!

On another topic about CP plants being used to control pests, at least for me I didn't really consider this to be the most important factor for keeping CPs, in fact in some cases I think that Neps attract insects to my "garden". But yes I think it is very common to consider CPs as a way to at least reduce insects. In fact one of the most common questions I heard was "do pitcher plants" trap mosquitos? My answer is always, "unlikely". which leads me to this question (sorry if we might go out of topic), what CP species is known to actually catch mosquitos? For Mosquito larvaes, I guess Utricularias, but I doubt if they are that effective.

TTFN
Arvin
Link to Post - Back to Top Logged rsivertsen
New Member

member is offline





Joined: Apr 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 15
Location: Northwest New Jersey, (USA)
Re: Introducing a new Species to Control Another
« Reply #5 on Jun 5, 2008, 2:20am »
In geologic terms, our lifespan is a rather brief one! Imagine a few hundred or thousand years, when some species of Nepenthes has gone feral in some part of Hawaii, and caused another small creature to go extinct in that time; perhaps some insect that was a vital pollinator for another species of plant. The complexities of the interconnecting fabric of nature are often very subtle, pull out the wrong string, and a large part of the entire fabric may unravel.

As for the mosquito control issue, it so happens that Aldrovanda are the only aquatic carnivorous plant that can trap and consume even the largest sizes of mosquito larvae, and so far seem fairly effective in doing so, growing in the same stagnant dystrophic pools of water where no other predator (fish or amphibian) can survive. But again, this needs to be carefully studied in a controlled manner so that they don't become another problem introduced by man in the best of intentions. - Rich « Last Edit: Jun 5, 2008, 2:27am by rsivertsen »Link to Post - Back to Top LoggedI'm not suffering from insanity, ... rather enjoying it actually! David
Administrator

member is offline





Joined: Dec 2006
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,326
Location: Kuala Lumpur
Re: Introducing a new Species to Control Another
« Reply #6 on Jun 5, 2008, 3:00pm »
I think if we are talking about the virgin forests that has never been violated by homo sapiens, then I think introducing another species from another habitat or continent may have negative effects. But if that place has already been tainted by human presence and pollution creating an unbalance in the eco system, adding another species to rectify the imbalance seems like the reasonable thing to do.

I am talking about places where there are developments and deforestation. Places that will never recover from the activities of humans.

Of course measures and studies have to be made to make sure that alien species do not spread and over populate the virgin forest.

But sometimes I wonder whether if it's really wrong to introduce a foreign species. What is really foreign and what is not? After all the continents on planet Earth was once one large mass of land before it broke into the different continents. Some species could have grown together before the land mass split into the continents we have today.

Also if we allow nature to take it's course, species that are known to be a native species growing in a particular location could have been an alien species introduced to that location by migrating animals or catastrophe a long time ago.

Looking at the tropical forest in my country, I noticed an invasive species of weeds that dominates the forest in some areas. Even though these are native to my country, their vigorous growth has dominated vast landscapes and suffocates the growth of other plants to the extent of killing them. Certain species of animals might need to depend on that particular plant that has been killed by the weeds.

I believe mankind have been given the responsibility over this planet to take care of it and we have been blessed with the power of innovation and intelligence as compared to the other living creatures on this planet. So wouldn't we be part of the natural way of how things work in nature when we use our intelligence to intervene and introduce an alien species to a place to help balance out the eco system there? Does not our actions save a certain species from extinction in that particular location? Perhaps we were meant to do this.

Why is it ok for nature and animals to "take its course" in nature and not ok for us? Aren't we part of planet Earth?

It's like if my wife is dying of a sickness and I found out that modern medicine can heal her. Should I say, let mother nature take its course as my wife is meant to die, and let her die?

Can we say, doctors should not make medicines to heal people as medicine kills bacteria and viruses. We should let nature take it's course to kill off some humans as viruses and bacteria are living things too and we should not intervene.

Just my uninformed and uneducated thoughts. « Last Edit: Jun 5, 2008, 9:03pm by David »Link to Post - Back to Top LoggedMy Wantlist arvin555
Junior Member

member is offline





Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 64
Location: Phillipines
Re: Introducing a new Species to Control Another
« Reply #7 on Jun 6, 2008, 1:43am »
In my opinion (only) if one can consider that the Earth is a living organism, a cell, I would classify humans as a bacteria/Virus that is "infecting" that cell which might lead to that cell dying! And no I am not an eco warrior or a doomsday person.

I agree that once the Earth was just one landmass (Pangea) but this was millions of years ago, and when the land masses split, the organisms that were split started having their own unique traits and niches, that is why it is considered wrong to introduce alien species, we learned this the hard way, a lot of organisms have become extinct due to humans knowingly or unknowlingly introducing alien species to a place where the endemic organisms have no means of protection from the alien species introduced... thus getting wiped out.

In terms of Nepenthes, name your all time favorite Nep species. Let us say Ventricosa (humor me!) and let us assume that there is a very special ventricosa species living in Gilligan's island, and that is the only Nepenthes there. Then here comes Arvin, visiting G. Island and bringing my N. Alata with me. I "set my alata" free. After some time the Alata starts cross pollenating with Ventricosa, to form Ventrata. And imagine that because of this hybrid, the Ventricosa started getting pushed away and that all ventricosas are getting cross pollinated by Alatas and Ventratas. After some time the very beautiful pure species Ventricosa gets wiped out because it got over run by Ventratas and Alatas! You don't care if Alatas and Ventratas are nice and grow fast, you want the Ventricosa in it's pure form, but alas, there is nothing left in Gilligan's island of that species!

Okay now I'll give a worse scenario. What if someone brought an alien species of beetle by accident into G. Island, and this beetle preys on Nepenthes, won't get caught in the pitcher, eats the whole plant. And worse it reproduces quickly. After a few months all the Neps in G. island is gone, eaten by the beetle. Because the beetle is a specialized eater, it also starts to die off due to lack of food. (this last one is what, at least for me, I consider Nature's way of maintaining "equilibrium" eventually).

TTFN
Arvin
Link to Post - Back to Top Logged marigoldsfail21
Full Member

member is offline





Joined: Feb 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 125
Location: Michigan, United States
Re: Introducing a new Species to Control Another
« Reply #8 on Jun 6, 2008, 10:47am »
I could not agree any more with David. For as long as there has been life on earth, organisms have been adapting to their environments, and developing the most effective ways of surviving predators and obtaining nutrients. As organisms have become isolated by geological and climatic conditions, thay have often evolved separate from each other and developed different methods of survival. Unfortunatly, as humans began to cross these barriers that separate ecosystems, we began to transfer many organisms, often not intentionally. We brought viruses, bacteria, fungi, animals, prokaryotes, and plants into new habitats. What happened is that some species that were introduced easily adapted, which isn't so much of a problem, however, the adaptations that they currently commanded allowed them to easily prey on native organisms. In their natural habitats, these species would have been controlled in some way by either predators, or by parasites. What I'm saying is that equillibrium already existed in the native habitats of all organisms. The equillibrium is upset when only a few species are introduced to a new habitat that they adapt well to. By bringing more species into a habitat that would survive on an invasive species is only recreating the equillibrium in a new area.

An example of this would be the parasitic flies that were introduced to the southern U.S. to control fire ants. The flies helped to control the fire ant populations, but at the same time, they did not spread or overpopulate the region.

Where I live, the emerald ash borer is a major invasive threat to ash trees. Lots of people are having their ash trees cut down because of them, and we're still waiting on an effective solution for this problem. « Last Edit: Jun 7, 2008, 2:23am by marigoldsfail21 »Link to Post - Back to Top Logged shawnintland
Full Member

member is offline





Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 175
Location: Koh Samui, Thailand
Re: Introducing a new Species to Control Another
« Reply #9 on Jun 6, 2008, 3:29pm »
Wow, this thread is really getting some thoughts flowing! Not really sure where I weigh in on this issue, but I have seen some similar situations in my years;

About 7-10 years ago a small, foreign, palm eating beetle was 'accidentally' introduced to Koh Samui, probably on some ornamental palms brought in for landscaping. I first noticed it on some rare palms I'm growing from seed. Well, after about 4 years there was very extensive damage being done to the coconut trees, which before tourism supplied the main income here. At one point I went to 3 spots around the island as high up into the mountains as I could get and spent hours with high powered binoculars trying to spot an uninfected coco...couldn't do it! This beetle had no natural preditors here and spread like wildfire. At one point they had infected all coconut trees and started spreading to other ornamental palms devastating the landscapes of all the hotels and private gardens.
Finally after writing to scientists in 9 countries that had experienced this same problem, we discovered that in Fiji, where the beetle originated, there was a tiny wasp that lays its eggs in the larvae of the beetle. The wasps were introduced and by way of a breeding program, run by both the government and private individuals, we succeeded in overcoming the beetle. My workers and I figure we produced somewhere around 4 million of the wasps and I finally had to run it as a commercial business venture to make ends meet. But man, it was close! The economy of a large segment of the population was in question for many years and people were trying to imagine what this island was going to look like without any palms anywhere. Due to the terrain here and the large volume of palms, spraying was not an option. This was the first time that Integrated Pest Management procedures were implemented on this kind of scale on Samui and it was hard to convince people that just because the problem didn't go away on the first release (unlike toxic sprays) didn't mean it was a failure! Fortunately a lot of the big hotels, probably due to the financial costs of replacing their landscapes, stuck with us and within the first year we could start to see a difference in certain areas. By the third year it was clear that we would win the battle. Of course after it all started looking rosy the government program was shut down and I fear that we will have a recurrence but at least we know a solution now.

On another note, I'm reading a fascinating book titled "The Black Swans" or 'The Impact of the Highly Improbable' by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He is calling Black Swans events which; 1) are outside regular expectations because nothing in the past can point to its possibility, 2) carry immense impact and 3) In spite of its unexpectedness, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence 'after the fact' making it seem explainable and predictable. Anyway, besides being a fascinating subject that we never even recognize as happening, one of his chapters has discussed "The stability of Species" and he points out that in general we have taken our data for extinct species from fossil evidence, completely overlooking the fact that very few species died in exactly the right spot to be fossilized, let alone to then be 'discovered' again by humans. Therefore the worrisome consequence is that now scientists are saying its probably closer to 99.5% of all species that transited through Earth that have become extinct! The point is; Life is a lot more fragile than we have allowed for (or like to admit). Not sure if I agree with his conclusion that we humans have no need to feel moral responsibility for every endangered species!

Hawaii, my home for 9 years, definitely has it's share of introduced species. Some like the mongoose, goats, rats, domestic cats and the cane toad have become horror stories when it comes to the native species welfare. Others like coconuts, breadfruit, heliconias and tons of ornamental plants we seem to forget were introduced, probably because we have become so fond of them.
Link to Post - Back to Top Logged marigoldsfail21
Full Member

member is offline





Joined: Feb 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 125
Location: Michigan, United States
Re: Introducing a new Species to Control Another
« Reply #10 on Jun 7, 2008, 1:40am »
Wow, really sorry there, didn't finish my last post yesterday. « Last Edit: Jun 7, 2008, 2:14am by marigoldsfail21 »Link to Post - Back to Top Logged nep369
Junior Member

member is offline



N. sibuyanensis x x trusmadiensis



Joined: Jul 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 73
Location: Kaneohe HI
Re: Introducing a new Species to Control Another
« Reply #11 on Jun 7, 2008, 6:54am »
Thank you Thank you all of your thoughts are great and have opened some quite interesting perspectives as well as ideas for knew and some reasons on why not, I'm gonna have to catch up to the end though, wasn't expecting this many responses but am very happy to see them.

Link to Post - Back to Top Loggedgot nepenthes? plantlover
Senior Member

member is offline



Now I'm getting more experienced



Joined: Jan 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 484
Location: Batu Pahat, Johor
Re: Introducing a new Species to Control Another
« Reply #12 on Jun 7, 2008, 12:35pm »
Wow!This thread is so long!
Link to Post - Back to Top Logged