http://conservationbytes.com/2009/08/18/the-rarity-of-commonness/ Conservation research... with bite Tue, 29 May 2012 05:05:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://conservationbytes.com/2009/08/18/the-rarity-of-commonness/#comment-5091 Thu, 16 Dec 2010 19:32:07 +0000 http://conservationbytes.com/?p=2572#comment-5091 [...] deal with the issue, and I’ve discussed some of the problems and nuances in past posts (see here, here, [...]

]]> http://conservationbytes.com/2009/08/18/the-rarity-of-commonness/#comment-2771 Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:40:13 +0000 http://conservationbytes.com/?p=2572#comment-2771 Actually, loss of commong species more often than not does not lead to any catastrophic ecological impact; it simply opens up space and frees up resources for other, less common species, to become “common.” This is clearly demonstrated in the US where the “most common” tree in the Eastern deciduous forest, the American chestnut, disappeared within a human generation, where another common species, the American elm, was virtually eliminated within a century and where the most common bird on the continent, the carrier pigeon, was exterminated before the dawn of the twentieth century. If you were to wander the forests and fields of the North American continent, you would find virtually no effect of these losses. Ecologically speaking, the maples and oaks have replaced the chestnuts and elms, and the mourning doves have replaced the pigeons. I certainly join with others in lamenting the loss of species, but, realistically, there is so much duplication of species within most ecological niches that the loss of one or another species, even the most common, is quickly made up by other, less common species. Gaston needs to get into the field more often. The suggestion that species that were once rare but are now common are somehow “artificially common,” implies that there is an inherent “natural” form of nature that has been upset. That view is religious, not scientific.

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