MYTHS OF THE ALIENS - The New Wild: Why Invasive Species will be Natures Salvation - page 67

In the past quarter-century, “invasion biology” has become a distinct academic discipline, with its own
journals, conferences, research centers, and gurus, such as Elton and Simberloff. But there is growing
criticism of its narrow agenda and apparent myopic focus on demonstrating the hypothesis that aliens
are bad. The charge is that invasion biologists have shown systematic bias in their studies. They have
started from the presumption that alien species are bad and sought out research topics that confirm their
view. Like tabloid editors, they concentrate their studies on the nastiest and most sensational invaders.
They have rarely been open to other interpretations and rarely investigate aliens with beneficial or more
nuanced impacts on their surroundings.
Research into the researchers seems to back this up. A 2008 study of papers published in a range
of invasion biology journals found that forty-nine species had been the subject of ten or more studies.
Almost all were well-known troublemakers, headed by the zebra mussel, with sixty-four papers, and the
Argentine ant, with sixty-one. Other highfliers included the cane toad in Australia, the Mediterranean
“killer algae” Caulerpa taxifolia , and Europe's wild boar. It could be that these species are representat-
ive of alien invaders as a whole and that there are hundreds of other unstudied species that are an equal
menace. But it is an accepted rule of thumb that at least 90 percent of invaders quickly disappear, and
of the remainder only around 10 percent cause any trouble. So it seems that research is overwhelmingly
concentrated on that 1 percent of the total. The authors of the 2008 findings, including David Richard-
son of Stellenbosch University in South Africa, were surely right that “it is the impact of the species that
largely determines whether or not it is studied.” 10
There is similar bias in geographical areas covered. Hundreds of papers explore the impact of invas-
ive species on the handful of tiny islands known to have had their natives most heavily challenged by
aliens. Simberloff's 2013 topic Invasive Species: What Everyone Needs to Know has thirty-eight pages
on invasions to Hawaii and thirty-six pages on South Florida—both tiny specks on the planet. Yet only
twenty-two pages include references to the continent of Africa, and most of them are about invasions
from Africa to other places or alien species in South Africa, which is but one country among fifty-
eight. 11 Invasion biologists seem to know little, and care even less, about either the silent majority of
migrating species that just fit in or the great many places where there is little pandemonium.
Perhaps this is not surprising. Researchers are only human, and bad news is always more interesting
than good news. I am a journalist; I know all about that. Says Jennifer Ruesink of the University of
Washington, the bias toward the troublemaker alien is inevitable “because that is the hypothesis they
test.” 12 But if that is the only hypothesis they test, then it seems a poor academic discipline. And if
general conclusions about alien species are drawn from such a biased research base, then we have a
problem. The big claims made for the dangers posed by the generality of invaders may be thoroughly
unreliable. So may the conclusion that we have a duty to try to prevent them all. It is scientific myth-
making.
We need some new icons to represent benign aliens. One might be the dandelion ( Taraxacum offi-
cinale ), which seems always to have been an unremarked presence across Europe and Asia. It will grow
just about anywhere there is sunlight. It traveled everywhere with European imperialists, who believed
it had medicinal uses. The British took it to New England, the French to Canada, and the Spaniards to
California and Mexico. It likes disturbed land of the kind humans specialize in creating. Its puffballs
of seeds easily blow long distances. It provides nectar for bees. Not even the most determined bio-
xenophobe has come up with any nasty habits that make the dandelion a bad neighbor. One website I
stumbled upon (since deleted) warned that “you can probably find it on any block in America.” Since it
does little discernible harm, that sounds like good news.