A Different Way To Protect The Ghost Orchid

[Subrosa]

Originally Posted by WhiteRabbit

I have been debating on whether or not this thread should be locked. I think there is good discussion, so, for now, will leave it open.
I understand that passionate feelings can lead to heated arguments, but remind all to remain respectful to those with differing points of view / opinions. Personal attacks and insults will not be tolerated, and will result in infractions and temporary bans.

If everyone could simply stay on point it would be a big help in the respect department. It's impossible to respect a point of view which changes according to necessity, and by extension the person who debates in this manner. Which is why I'm talking to you and not them Sonya.

[WhiteRabbit]

The personal arguing must stop! If there is one more post that contains language that IN ANY WAY is insulting to another, there will be infractions with temporary bans given!

[Orchid Whisperer]

I think it is worthwhile to take a step back here, look at some basic facts, and take a realistic look at what can and can't be done to protect Dendrophylax lindenii.

Fact: It is a Florida endangered species. There are estimates that there are only 1,200 wild specimens left.

Fact: It is also on the CITES II list.

Fact: It occurs in only limited areas of Florida. Estimates range from 3 to 5 counties only, most likely in Collier, Hendry, Lee and mainland Monroe counties only, in six protected nature preserves. Start messing around planting things that don't belong in those preserves, you would likely end up in handcuffs before you can say Bob's-your-uncle. D. lindenii may have already been extirpated from the Everglades. There are reports of its occurrence in Cuba and the Bahamas.

Fact: Its habitat is dome swamps, strand swamps, and sloughs. The species occurs naturally on specific tree species, close to eye level, often on trees in standing water with the plants approximately 5 feet above the water. So, they occur in an extremely small area geographically, on a handful of tree types, and within eye level above the water/ground surface. That is an EXTREMELY narrow range of conditions and habitats.

Fact: It has been declining in numbers. Why?

Certainly collection by poachers explains part of the demise, despite the fact that wild-collected plants usually die in cultivation. Other plants have been lost due to habitat destruction. The giant sphinx moth is declining in numbers, and that too may be part of the decline.

A clue from the 1970s explains why much of the decline may be occurring. During the late 1970s, some big freeze events occurred far down into south Florida, especially in 1977. Hundreds of plants died.

Why? Examine where the plants are living. In swamps, above water; during cold spells, the thermal mass of the water keeps temperatures locally warmer, by just a couple of degrees. It now makes sense why these plants grow so close to the ground/water surface.

Surely freezes came to south Florida before the late 1970s? Yes, but here is an interesting fact. Historically, decisions have been made to drain parts of south Florida to make way for agriculture, development, etc. LOWERING the water. Perhaps the colonies of ghost orchids in the wild adapted to survive in a very narrow range above water in the swamps, relying on the thermal mass to survive the winter. Who knows how old individual wild plants, or colonies of plants, are? If the plant was established when water surface was within 3 to 5 feet of the plants, and the water surface was suddenly dropped through man-made drainage, then with the next big freeze, suddenly the plants are too exposed to the cold and die.

Clearly, if you are concerned about preserving this species, then overwhelmingly the best course of action is to preserve habitat. Since the habitat is so limited and narrow, it makes no sense to plant a hybrid, or other species, in the same place. In some cases, it may be possible to reverse habitat loss and restore wetlands of the type where D. lindenii used to live (dome swamps, strand swamps, and sloughs); in time, maybe D. lindenii can re-colonize the restored areas. As with most things, when it comes to conservation, go for the low-hanging fruit first. Way before even contemplating poorly-conceived, far-fetched and scientifically ill-advised measures.

Regarding possible effects of global warming, since a drop in water level may have caused part of the decline in numbers, it is hard to argue that an incremental rise in water level over time will cause D. lindenii to go extinct. I am not arguing in favor of global warming, just saying that I don't see it as a huge threat to the species.

Is this species worth saving? Clearly the loss of the estimated 1200 remaining plants is not going to result in mass extinction. I would hope that the moths have another food source and at least survive. But like the California condor, or whooping crane, the world will be a better place if we do not lose D. lindenii.

I've said my peace on the matter, tried not to insult anyone. If you truly want to save this species, find a conservation group actively trying to preserve habitat in south Florida, and support them, rather than pursuing scientifically unsound strategies.

[orchidsarefun]

OrchidWhisperer - there is much to agree with in your post.
I would just like to point out that climate change has an associated potential impact and that is colder Winter snaps or even prolonged cold. This would be devastating to the Ghost Orchid if the rising tides do not compensate. Timing is crucial to the survival of the species in the wild based on what you have stated.
Here is some data
Winters - Florida Climate Center
Another article
GhostOrchid.info

Also I really don't know why there appears to be no restocking programme, or one that I can find ? Donations could be used to either propagate seeds or purchase seedlings ? Surely there is potential for habitat restocking which is a good example of 'low-hanging fruit'

[Orchid Whisperer]

A restocking program seems to be a more reasonable idea than placing hybrids in the few habitats where D. Lindenii lives. Whether there are barriers to restocking, I don't know. Perhaps a botanist with skill in orchid ecology might know (James D. Ackerman comes to mind).

[calvin_orchidL]

I don't have any extensive training in evolutionary biology, so rather than make assertions I can't fully back up, I thought I'd take a step back and pose some questions regarding the proposal at hand, trying to keep things in line with this discussion. Ignoring the man-made philosophical (and emotionally charged) concepts of purity, 'natural', true wilderness etc...and looking completely at the potential interventions that we take as humans impacting (whether positively or negatively) our environment:

1) What is the goal of this intervention? I think I'm still not clear regarding this, so if someone can clarify that would be great! There's a lot of talk about biodiversity, extinction etc...but what exactly are we trying to accomplish? Are we trying to save D. lindenii as we know it today? Or save some version of it that contains it's genes? Or just increase biodiversity on a whole, not worrying about what is present at the other end?

2) Does the intervention have potential for harm?
Is it even a remote possibility that the intervention causes side effects that end up going against the goal above? I made the assumption that the goal was to save d. lindenii as we know it today, and supplied evidence towards the threat hybrids might have towards existing species, but perhaps this was a false assumption altogether, and we're not trying to accomplish this goal.

3) Can this intervention be carried out without the above harmful effects? E.g. Can we achieve the same goal (assuming we have clarified what it is) without the potential harms listed above? For instance, if we are trying to preserve D. lindenii genetic material, can't everything that's been discussed (e.g. crossing with d. funalis and breeding for temperature tolerance, drought tolerance etc...) be done in a controlled greenhouse? Must it be introduced into the environment to achieve the same goal?

3) Are there other interventions that may be equally as effective in achieving the goal without potential harm? Some people have brought up conserving habitat, and others introducing lab strains into the environment. Other ideas might be to actually select for more tolerant, stronger d. lindenii clones in the controlled environment, and repopulate with these. Are these interventions more economical? Effective?

4) Is there a problem in need for intervention in the first place? Andrew brought this up which I guess brings us back to number 1 - what are we trying to solve? Is the problem loss of biodiversity in general? Is it extinction of d. lindenii specifically? Is it loss of the hawk moths?

[tropterrarium]

Hi Nat,

My main points are:
- Humans usually mess things up when interfering with nature.
- Biodiversity, with no further qualifier, refers to number of species. [there are other approaches, but don't want to digress].
- Hybrids with emergent properties is a red herring, particularly when looking at orchids. In the vast majority of cases you have either expression of character state of one parent (dominant/recessive system), or something in between (additive effects). Novel character states are extremely rare (see also saltational evolution and "hopeful monster" theory).
- Creating biodiversity has to do with creating species; n.b. "species" is a loaded term in itself, as it depends on species concepts, of which there are a good handful. That is why I went a bit into anagenesis/cladogenesis.
- In the thread that I only skimmed (not read every last post), I noted that the biodiversity-species-speciation connection was not made. So I wanted to provide a few keywords that the interested reader can further investigate. I have no intention of teaching pop-gen/evolution on this forum; have done it before as an upper division class. Pick up some general evolution book, such as Futuyma or Freeman & Herron. That will help putting all those trees together into a picture of a forest.
- Age & timing of species/speciation is on the order of million years based on orchid phylogenies using molecular clocks (take your pick). Conservation is typically a matter of a human generation (or less). There is a genuine time scale miss-match.
- Un-conventional content gets published in higher ranking journals (higher IF). Those journals also publish more non-sense (cold fusion, monoplacophorans are desegmented polyplacophora in PNAS, debunked as lab contamination at Harvard in MPE, etc.). Science publishing is not quite as neutral ivory-tower as non-scientist may think.

Glad you want to look at my pubs. See
http://www.vetigastropoda.com/abstra.../scipapers.php
Mainly molluscan systematics (including 4 books), some molecular phylogenetics, some phylogenetic theory, some paleo.
The CV tabs gives you history of professional appointments, and various editorial positions, and some conservation creds (member IUCN specialist group: that's one you only get by invitation). Also a list with 9 of the 10 taxa named after me (Pseudopusula geigeri is still missing, have to update the page).

So yes, I have a bit of an idea of what I talk about.

I am not interested in getting into the nitty gritty detail of Florida ghost orchid. In the infamous words of Bob Beeze, former curator of herpetology at LACM: "This is fascinating, but not fascinating enough for me to do anything about it".

I won't add anything more to this thread. That's as far as it goes. Back to working on SEMs of Oberonia. Peace!

[epiphyte78]

If I had to pick one introduction that could potentially have the greatest positive impact on biodiversity...then I think that I'd have to go with introducing hummingbirds to the rest of the world. Because I'm pretty sure that we all benefit when there's more, rather than less, pollinators. But I could be wrong. And to be clear, in no way shape or form am I advocating or supporting the illegal introduction of any plant or animal. I guess it's impossible for me to say that enough.

Here's my reply to tropterrarium...herclivation. Hopefully it contains information that everybody interested in the topic will find informative. Especially the part about paging versus scrolling.

Orchid Whisperer, gnathaniel...your last posts were definitely worthy of blog entries.

calvin_orchidL, good questions.

1. For me the goal is greater biodiversity.

2. For the most part, hedging bets is a pretty good strategy for minimizing harm. Given that I'm advocating that we hedge our bets, you're basically asking what's the potential harm of hedging our bets. In other words, you're asking what's the potential harm of trying to minimize potential harm.

3. Can we accomplish the same goal in cultivation? I don't think we can duplicate natural selection and adapative radiation in cultivation.

4. Hmmm...introduce a fitter lindenii? Well, it's not much of a hedge. Not sure if you heard of it, but there's a million orchid project in Florida. Basically they grow a bunch of native epiphytic orchids from seed and then attach them to street trees. It's pretty great. But imagine if the one million orchids were all clones of the same exact orchid. Even if the clone was wonderful...it would still be only one combination of traits. In essence it would be putting a lot of eggs in one basket. You could even put more eggs in one basket by putting all million orchids in one neighborhood. If that neighborhood was devastated by a hurricane or extreme cold then that would be it. Increasing variety/difference of traits/locations would increase the chances of success.

5. The immediate problem that we'd be trying to solve is that lindenii might have too much sameness/uniformity to handle the significant changes to its environment.


orchidsarefun, not sure about a timeline. I mean, there's no timeline if there isn't substantial expert support for herclivation of Dendrophylax. And I'm not even sure if the experts would agree about translocation of closely related species to Florida.

Well...if I missed anything then hopefully my blog entry covered it. If not then feel free to bring them up again.

[Orchid Whisperer]

Steve, reading the post you quoted, I agree it is time for this to end, at least for my part. In the text you quote, epiphyte78 manages to say nothing at all, yet requires 5 numbered sections to do so! I don't feel the need to censor and end the thread, but that is up to the moderators.

To add to all the misinformed and misguided drivel posted about D. lindenii, now epiphyte78 seems to be moving the subject to hummingbirds and introducing them to the rest of the world!! Unbelievable!! Not to mention that if it we're done the poor birds would starve because the plants they feed on are all in the Americas.

The text you quote also includes two words apparently invented by epiphyte78 (herclivation and transolation) which have absolutely no meaning to anyone except epiphyte78. But I will admit that in this regard, epiphyte78 has inspired me. I have decided to create my own made-up word. The word is bloefleuvinate. It is pronounced blo-FLOO-vih-nate. It is a verb which means to actively avoid reading about incoherent, half-baked and misguided ideas promoted by the chronically and unrepentantly uninformed.

It is time for me to bloefleuvinate. Indeed, I have been procrastinating with respect to my bloefleuvinating. As I depart, I would like to share with everyone the ancient saying (which I just invented): "Birds of a feather, bloefleuvinate together".

Happy bloefleuvinating everyone.

[Subrosa]

In regards to respect, I would contend that granting any level of respect to the ideas postulated by the op only encourages more of the same from him. A bad idea is a bad idea, and respecting it is an insult to good ideas. As far as respect for the person behind the bad idea, as a person he is indeed entitled to a fundamental level of respect. But what exactly is the fundamental level of respect to which all are deserving of? Does it include not calling a person's crazy ideas crazy? Not in my book. As far as I'm concerned the only guarantees of respect a person earns by the mere act of breathing are to not have one's person or property laid hands upon without permission. The stroking of a person's feelings is the job of their loved ones, not those who disagree with him/her.