diversity and productivity sitting in a tree

reply to my thread about florida natural farming (fnf)...

****************************

when i was a kid i would religiously read the peanuts comic strip. lucy would often offer to balance a football so that charlie brown could kick it. each time, at the very last second, she would pull it away and he would fall flat on his back.

fnf has several large inga trees and each time he says that they are going to finally fruit, but every time, at the very last minute, they trick him.  it’s a bit entertaining and endearing.  

i don’t think that i’ve ever heard fnf mention that fruit trees near the ingas grow extra fast, which is interesting because check this out…

the cacao on the left isn’t growing anywhere near any ingas, while the cacao on the right is growing in an inga alley. fake news? the slide is from this video on inga alley cropping, which i only recently learned about thanks to the wikipedia article on mycorrhiza. here’s the wikipedia article on inga alley cropping.

naturally i was quite curious if it has ever been discussed here on tff, and it has been, albeit briefly…about the inga genus. in that 2017 thread there were only 4 participants, one of which was pineislander. he was there. where were we? not there.

one time, nearly a decade ago, at an orchid show i started talking with a random guy. he mentioned something about the orchidboard, and i told him that i was on there as well. i asked him what his username was. when he said what it was, i realized that he was the guy on there who told me to go f myself because he thought my views on orchid conservation were heretical.

flauro01, hint matthew 5:38? nope, i didn't turn my other cheek, i quickly lost all interest in talking with the guy and exited stage left. if i had been a little forgiving then i'm sure that i would have learned some useful stuff from him.

i only made 1 comment on fnf's videos, and he deleted it. in his video he said something about being overwhelmed trying to do everything on his own, so i commented that i’ve met a lot of young and enthusiastic plant people via my local facebook plant group who have been more than willing to lend a hand in my garden. my comment wasn't even vaguely negative or critical, so the fact he deleted it was very off-putting. fortunately, in this case, being so much older and wiser (hah) i just barely managed to turn the cheek and i continued to watch his videos, and i’ve learned useful stuff from them.

sure, it would greatly help fnf's cause if he was more like fff planting garcinias together with an enthusiastic young person, but that's just not who he is. just like most of us don't regularly video document our garden efforts, endeavors and experiments. we all have room for improvement.

in my book, fnf's shortcomings are eclipsed by his crazy cool achievement of growing such a wide variety of crazy cool plants without any irrigation. so it's awesome to see him back on this forum again. if we can all try to turn the cheek, then there's lots of useful stuff that we can learn from each other, such as whether ingas actually do help nearby fruit trees grow faster, via mycorrhizae.

in the wikipedia entry on mycorrhizae there’s a section on orchids. orchids are unique in that their seeds do not contain the energy that they need to germinate (exceptions to the rule). on the one hand, this allows the incredibly small seeds to travel considerable distances on the wind, but on the other hand, the only way that they can germinate is if they get lucky enough to land on a spot where they will be penetrated by a suitable  mycorrhizae. the orchid seed will take the energy it needs to germinate from the fungus, but it doesn't kill it. the fungus takes up residence in the roots of the seedling.  if the orchid seedling is growing on a tree (epiphyte!), then as its roots grow longer and more numerous, this will help the fungus colonize the tree and more of its spores will spread to other trees, which will help to germinate the orchid's seeds.

here's my 2014 attempt to illustrate orchid roots facilitating fungi colonization of its tree...

in 2011 i sowed a bunch of different orchid seeds on my deodar cedar tree here in the los angeles area that has orchids and other epiphytes growing on it. i was hoping that some of their roots contained the helpful fungus and it had spread all over the tree, but i wasn’t holding my breath. so it was a very surreal surprise, to say the least, when i noticed several tiny green boogers (aka protocorms) magically appear on the sunny side of the tree on completely barren bark...

i immediately started to inspect every inch of the tree and found several dozen protocorms. what was rather fascinating, is that all of the protocorms were located within 1/2" of the roots of the mature orchids on the tree. evidently, in my dry conditions, that was as far as the helpful fungus could travel from its moist home inside the succulent orchid roots.

it turned out that all the orchid seeds that germinated on my tree were from laelia anceps, an orchid native to mexico. another fascinating thing is that the orchid roots in the above picture were from a dendrobium speciosum, which is a distantly related orchid native to australia. the two orchids are so distantly related that they can't be crossed. i also found laelia anceps protocorms growing right next to roots of vanda tricolor, a distantly related orchid native to indonesia. these two orchids are even more distantly related, given that their forms are completely different (sympodial vs monopodial).

where was the fungi from? was it just 1 variety? in any case, it’s important to appreciate that the fungi facilitated an exchange of resources between very distantly related orchid species.

it took nearly a decade for the 1st laelia anceps seedling to bloom.

a couple years ago i removed a division from the 2nd laelia anceps seedling to bloom on my tree and i sent it to my online friend keith in tampa so that he could attach it to his tree in order to try to innoculate it with the beneficial fungi in the orchid’s roots. he actually recently upgraded to a real life friend when i met him in person. a couple months ago i visited florida for the 1st time and he was nice enough to give my friend and i a garden tour. keith is so cool. he's young but already so knowledgeable. he's trying to select coconuts for cold tolerance. and he has a big vanilla (pompona?) vine growing on his tree…

The Inefficient Allocation of Epiphytic Orchids

For those of you who don't know, during winter I tend to allocate more of my spare time to a much more important cause... pragmatarianism.  Yes, people having the freedom to directly allocate their taxes is far more important than having epiphytes growing everywhere on everything.  Which says a lot because I'm really sure that the world would be an infinitely better place with more epiphytes.  And if we could choose where our taxes go then I'd spend quite a bit of time trying to make the best case possible for epiphytes being somehow designated a public good that people would have the option to spend their taxes on.  Like, shouldn't there be a Dept of Epiphytes (DoEpi)?  You'd allocate as much of your taxes as you wanted to the DoEpi and they'd facilitate the flourishing of epiphytes everywhere.

Even though pragmatarianism is a much more important cause... by the time the weather starts to warm up I'm either burnt out trying to sell the creation of a market in the public sector... or the lure of spending my spare time hugging trees with my epiphytes becomes too hard to resist.

Well... even though it's pretty warm... I still haven't hit the wall with pragmatarianism yet.  But here I am though!  I blame... Catherine Kirby.  And Pierrot M.

The reason that I blame Kirby is because of her recent blog entry... Epiphytes in the garden.  It's a very exciting entry... she featured Mr. Epiphyte Tree and his most excellent epiphyte extravaganza.  She also described a study in Ethiopia where they documented a great variety of epiphytes growing on urban coffee trees.  Then Kirby wrote this...

I don't think that the Ethiopian situation is mirrored in New Zealand because we can't achieve forest-like humidity in urban centres but I would be interested to hear from anyone who has a good epiphyte load in their home garden, either planted or naturally occurring?  

A day or two later Pierrot M posted this comment on my Youtube video Extreme Gardening...

I am really amazed, what you have done is really wonderfull, i have a very big garden ( parc ) in France and i 'd love to do the same, but the climate doesn't allow it. I love orchids, i have seen a lot in the whole world, but the vertical garden you done is unique. A question : is the climate in california soft enough in winter to allow the plants to survive? do you water them? what is the care you do? 

If Pierrot wants to attach orchids to trees then he'd have to move somewhere else!  That's a terrible predicament that nobody should have to be in.  Wherever trees can grow there should be dozens or hundreds or thousands of different epiphytic orchids that can grow on them.  This is orchids' goal and mine as well.

All plants, but especially epiphytes, and especially epiphytic orchids, are about the conquest of space so eventually we'll get there... but I just wish I was smart enough to figure out a brilliant plan to help us get there sooner rather than later.  So far herclivation is the best plan that I've come up with.

Herclivation, which is just a theory, and nothing that I'd advocate without plenty of expert vetting/vouching/validating... would involve the introduction/translocation of non-native epiphytic CAM orchids to places like New Zealand.  At this stage in the game this is probably the last thing that Kirby and other experts would want people to do... The last uninvaded frontier?  And for all I know she could be right!  She probably is right!  Let's assume that she's right.  But I don't think it hurts to explore the possibility that she's wrong.  If she is right then how could her theory not hold up to some poking and prodding?

If you scroll down that entry of hers you'll see that she shared a picture of a Dendrobium (delicatum?) that she suspects was deliberately planted on a tree in nature.  To play the Dendrobium's advocate... how does she know that the Dendrobium wasn't from a seed that blew in from Australia where those types of orchids are native to?  Is that such an unreasonable assumption given that, as I've already pointed out, epiphytic orchids are all about the conquest of space?  If it could be proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was the case... would she still have removed it?  Aren't we guessing that all of New Zealand's native epiphytic orchids arrived from Australia?  I actually don't know if that's true or not.  It just seems reasonable enough to point out... because it would have been a problem if somebody had "weeded" the first arrivals.

The thing about that wayward Dendrobium is, as every Southern California orchid enthusiast knows, it's perfect for growing outdoors here.  And if it can thrive outdoors here in our very dry and extremely low humidity climate... then I think it would be pretty darn perfect for New Zealand's urban centers.  Here in SoCal we have to worry about watering this orchid every few days during summer... but in New Zealand urban centers... would they even need any supplemental water?

Oh man, I get green with envy at the thought of orchids on street trees not needing any supplemental water!!!  Exhibit A... orquideas plantadas em arvarores (Brazil).    Exhibit B (shared with permission)...




Orchid Flowers On Sidewalk Trees (Taiwan)

For those of you who don't know... there around 30,000 species of orchids... 20,000 of which are epiphytes.  A really large chunk of the epiphytic orchids are CAM orchids.  This basically means that they are succulents.  In fact, with this definition, the orchid family has more succulent plants than any other family... including the cactus family.  Quite a few orchids even grow on cactus and other succulents.  So with reasonably suitable temperatures such as here in SoCal and in New Zealand... there are literally 1000s of species of CAM orchids that can thrive outdoors on trees in lower humidity habitats.

My gut instinct is that attaching many of these slower growing CAM epiphytic orchids to trees in New Zealand's warmer and lower humidity urban centers would have all sorts of positive externalities.  Again and again I'm not advocating or suggesting this... I'm just saying that my gut... which is filled with a not insignificant amount of research into the topic... leads me to this possibility.  I just don't see these specialized CAM orchids really competing for the same niches that are preferred by New Zealand's native epiphytes.  So I'm really inclined to perceive that it wouldn't be a zero sum game.

In theory, it does stand to reason that the more CAM species that were introduced into New Zealand's urban centers... the greater the chances that one of them would really conquest space and truly crowd out a native orchid.  But I think you'd have to introduce quite a few CAM species before the chances were reasonably decent that a native would be displaced.  At that point, if you considered all the urban niches (and clearly some wild ones as well) that had been filled... all the added biodiversity... and all the facilitation cascades (fungus partners, pollinators, herbivores and their predators, etc)... and all the carbon sequestering effects... and all the general enjoyment/exposure effects... then it might not seem like a bad trade off.  Especially if all of New Zealand's epiphytic orchids have been successfully introduced to California's Pacific Northwest or suitable habitats in Chile.  Neither of which have any epiphytic orchids.  

The more places that herclivation was implemented... the more progress we'd make towards reaching the goal.  This is because it's a numbers game.  Orchid seed pods can contain a million seeds.  This is pretty much the best recipe for finding where there's room for improvement.  So when you have more orchids on trees you greatly facilitate the conquest of space.  As a result, orchids would be able to grow on trees in France sooner rather than later.

And by that time that orchids can grow on trees in France it's a given that we'd have far more species than we do now.  The more places you put a species, the more species you'll create.  This is because no two places are exactly alike.  So when the same species adapts to different places... you get more species.

With Edens vanishing around the world... I think there's an obligation to help, in some way, to offset the loss of nature.  Maybe herclivation isn't the best way to do this... but we should really encourage and support epiphytic thinking when it comes to such an important topic.

Tasmanian Tigers/Devils Aren't Bad Consolation Prizes

More pure theory and hypothesis.  Again, I do not support or advocate the introduction of any nonnative species.

Reply to: A Different Way To Protect The Ghost Orchid

**************************************************

gnathaniel, thanks for sharing those two examples.  That Galapagos story was pretty crazy.  What was the takeaway?

• change is constant
• Goats are bad
• Pirates are mostly bad but they can be unintentionally good
• Don't keep all your tortoises on one island (hedge your bets)
• A certain intern has a very interesting resume
• Hybrid swarms can be used to recreate the parent species
• A Hybrid finch might be less suspectible to brain sucking maggots (hedge your bets)
• Future biodiversity depends on how well we play God

Is that right?  Am I missing any?

That was kind of grizzly about the goats.  I really hope that all that meat didn't go to waste.

Speaking of conservation/eradication...

The Big Kill (hat tip MT)

I knew about the Moas but I didn't realize that there also use to be a giant eagle that preyed on them... Haast's eagle.  I always feel ripped off when I learn about a modern extinction...especially when it's something as cool as a giant eagle.

People in the not-so-distant past stole many valuable treasures from us. But it's hard to judge them too harshly because we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them.  As it stands, most of us are really glad that we don't have to live in "those" times.

Prior to humans visiting New Zealand, the islands didn't have any mammals other than a few bats.  As a result, birds had the opportunity to adaptively radiate into the major empty niches.  The Moas functioned as deer and the eagles functioned as wolves.

This is relevant because herclivation is based on the premise that there's an abundance of unfilled arboreal niches.  For reasons previously discussed, I've argued that we should seriously consider filling them as quickly as possible.  But, if we had somehow applied my logic to prehistoric New Zealand and filled the empty niches with deer and wolves...then Moas and Haast's eagles would never have evolved.

This does give me pause...but, then again, Tasmanian Devils and Tigers are/were pretty cool as well.

If us humans weren't around, and barring any natural disaster, in a few million years or so Florida's epiphytic diversity would probably rival the epiphytic diversity of present day Costa Rica.  And Canada would have as many epiphytic orchids as Florida currently does.

Maybe future Florida would have had a giant species of Ghost Orchid that was pollinated by a moth the size of a hawk. How crazy cool would that have been?

The not-so-minor detail is that us humans, well, we are around. Maybe in the long long run most of us will rocket away and help terraform a swath of lifeless planets.  We'll stop cramping mother nature's style here on earth and she could get back to churning out Moas and giant eagles.  But who knows when or if we'll ever make it off this planet (it depends on how long it takes people to understand that progress depends on difference).

Because wild habitats have been drastically reduced in size and number...it's a given that the future is going to have far less biodiversity than it would have had.  So if we want the future to have more, rather than less biodiversity, then I think we need to seriously consider trying to help maximize the speciation potential of any and all habitats.  This means filling empty niches with life...which, over time, will change and adapt to the different selective pressures of the new environments.  As I've argued before, places like Florida are a good place to start because there's an abundance of unoccupied arboreal niches.

We can imagine mother nature as a scientist in a laboratory churning out new species.  Here we are on this forum because we're big fans of the orchids that she's produced.  What's important to understand is that every output, whether it's a Ghost Orchid or a Haarst eagle, depends on inputs.  The two main inputs that mother nature needs for her outputs are wild habitats and genetic material.  If either input is reduced then her output will also be reduced.  Given that we've drastically reduced the amount of wild habitat that she has to work with, mother nature's productivity will drastically suffer...unless we offset the reduction of habitat material by giving her more genetic material to work with.

So the basic function looks something like this...

xSpace * yGenes = zSpecies  

x and y are the inputs and z is the output. We've slashed x which means we need to boost y in order to avoid ripping off future generations.  They won't get Moas and Haast's eagles but they'll get Tasmanian Tigers/Devils...which are pretty cool consolation prizes.  

Herclivation

Backstory:  The Ghost Orchid, Dendrophylax lindenii, is an endangered orchid that grows on trees in the Florida Everglades (plants that grow on trees are epiphytes).  I've been fleshing out a theoretical, process based approach... "herclivation"...that could potentially facilitate this orchid's adaptive radiation into different (micro)habitats.  This approach would involve introducing its hybrids (ie Gripp's Ghost) and/or closely related species into Southern Florida.  Again, this is simply a theory. Let me make it very clear...I do not advocate or support the illegal introduction of plants or animals outside of their native habitats.  My hope here is to facilitate constructive feedback, expert or otherwise, on why this plan might not be feasible.  Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow (Linus's Law).

This blog entry is a reply to a couple replies in this forum thread... A Different Way To Protect The Ghost Orchid

*********************************************************

lotis146, good lord is right!  You're on the 7th page?  This is only the second page for me.  Either you like clicking page numbers and waiting for pages to load...or nobody told you that you that you can change your settings in order to view more posts per page.

A Controversial Approach To Protecting Florida's Ghost Orchid

Reply to Hybrid Wish List

If you'd like Dendrophylax lindenii x funalis to be more readily available then please vote here... Dendrophylax lindenii x Dendrophylax funalis (more tolerant Ghost Orchid)

**********************************************

Catt Mandu, you added me to your ignore list and in return I'm going to...not add you to my ignore list.  For some reason I don't think that I'd be doing myself any favors by ignoring people who I disagree with.  Perhaps it's because I've studied fallibilism enough to accept the fact that it's entirely possible that I'm wrong about most things.

Even though you're not going to see my reply (unless you log out and view this thread)...I'm going to reply to you anyways.  You brought up some points and I'm going to attempt to adequately address the relevant ones.  This being a public forum and all.

Is it far-fetched that introduced pythons would unintentionally crush Florida's Ghost Orchid (Dendrophylax lindenii) into extinction?  Perhaps a bit.  But I don't think it's far fetched that the introduction of a new predator could somehow indirectly harm (or benefit) the Ghost Orchid.  If you bothered to read and were able to understand the passage* by Darwin that I shared earlier, then you wouldn't think it's far fetched either.

Of course you could argue that pythons should never have been introduced in the first place.  Just like you could argue that humans should never have caused global warming.  But extinctions occurred long before us humans appeared on the scene and they will continue to occur long after we're gone.  Change is a constant...it benefits some and harms others.

Generally speaking, the narrower an organism's environmental parameters...the more likely it is to be adversely impacted by change.  And as I, and many others, can personally attest to... the Ghost Orchid is, relatively speaking, very easy to kill.  Dendrophylax funalis, by comparison, is much more tolerant of a wider range of conditions.  It will happily grow outdoors year around in warmer parts of Southern California.

Let me break this argument down...

Premise 1: Species with narrower parameters are more likely to be harmed by change.
Premise 2: The Ghost Orchid has very narrow parameters.
Conclusion: The Ghost Orchid is more likely to be harmed by change (ie climate).

In order to help protect the Ghost Orchid...assuming that this is something that we want to do...there are two possible approaches...

1. Change the conditions to match the Ghost Orchid's preferences.
2. Change the Ghost Orchid's preferences to match the conditions.

Either the mountain goes to Mohammed, or Mohammed goes to the mountain.

The current approach to conservation is to try and undo some of the damage that we've done to the planet.  The problem is that we're all responsible for the damage but only a very small group of people are genuinely and actively concerned with undoing the damage.  In order for significant progress to be made there would have to be a massive mobilization of significant resources.  And these resources, like all resources, could be put to other uses.  Maybe even more valuable uses.  This is the fundamentally important economic concept known as "opportunity cost".

From my perspective, it would behoove us to seriously consider the merits of the internal approach.  With the internal approach we would acknowledge that it's dangerous for overly specialized epiphytic orchids to be adapted to conditions which no longer exist.  The Florida that the Ghost Orchid is adapted to no longer exists and will never exist again.  If we want this orchid to continue to survive, then we should seriously consider helping it to adapt to the conditions that do exist.

Early in this thread I acknowledged that this approach isn't "conservation" as we know it.  The best term that I've been able to come up with for this internal approach is "herclivation".  Of course anybody is welcome to come up with a better term.  "Herclivation" is loosely derived from "Heraclitus"...the Greek philosopher who argued that change is the one constant... "no man ever steps in the same river twice".

Herclivation of the Ghost Orchid would involve introducing a cross between D. lindenii and funalis into the wild.  Out of curiosity I looked this cross up on the RHS website and found it... Polyphylax Gripp's Ghost.  It took a couple tries to find it because the RHS has "Polyradicion" listed as the genus for lindenii rather than "Dendrophylax".

Here's a very brief breakdown of their habitat preferences...

Species of Dendrophylax occur from sea level to about 1600m (D. macrocarpus (Dod) Carlsward & Whitten).  Many are found in shaded sites with high humidity on tree trunks (D. lindenii) but may also be found in xeric habitats of shrubs or small trees (D. porrectus) or on limestone rocks (D. funalis). - Alec M. Pridgeon, ‎Phillip J. Cribb, ‎Mark W. Chase, Genera Orchidacearum Volume 6: Epidendroideae

D. lindenii prefers more humidity/shade while D. funalis prefers less humidity/shade.  The differences in their preferences could result in hybrids with a continuum of humidity/shade preferences.  This general situation was briefly considered in the book, "The Botany of Orchids"...

Cutting of forests and the planting of tree crops in the tropics may provide intermediate habitats which permit the survival of hybrids between orchid species which grow in distinct niches.  An example would be that of populations of plants which grow in sun and others which grow in shade and are thereby ecologically isolated.  Filtered sun in agricultural plantings might support intermediate hybrids.  The hybrids may backcross with the parental types and may cross among themselves.  The result would be a highly variable hybrid swarm.  Recombination types might be more successful than either of the previous species. - Calaway H. Dodson, Robert J. Gillespie, The Botany of Orchids

Given that both lindenii and funalis occur in Jamaica, this exact situation might happen on its own.  Or maybe their populations are too small and far apart for it to happen naturally.  (Not sure what led me to believe that lindenii also occurs in Jamaica).  Or maybe they have different pollinators.

The Ghost Orchid is pollinated by the Giant Sphinx moth (Cocytius antaeus) but I wasn't able to learn whether or not it also pollinates funalis.  Funalis has a shorter spur than lindenii.  It stands to reason though that a moth with a long proboscis (straw) would have no problem drinking nectar from an orchid with a short spur (cup).

It's a given that there's some variation in spur and straw length.  Both the moth and the Ghost Orchid probably didn't simultaneously and independently develop their long appendages over night.  Most likely moths with longer straws had greater fitness because they could drink from a greater range of cup sizes.  

Does Gripp's Ghost have an intermediately sized spur?  It's not that easy to discern, but in this picture of Gripp's Ghost it does appear that the spur is somewhat intermediate in length.  I'm sure that some of the seedlings from that cross had longer or shorter spurs... depending on which parent they inherited the relevant traits from.

If we introduced a "highly variable hybrid swarm" of Gripp's Ghost to Florida then this would increase the chances of finding variations that match some of the available environmental conditions.

Hopefully there would be a variation for the half a million acres of Florida orange groves.  This variation would have to combine lindenii's preference for shade and funalis' tolerance of dryness.  Maybe a slightly different variation would be suitable for Florida Christmas tree farms.  How awesome would that be to purchase a Christmas tree with live orchids growing on it?  It would be really hard top the Ghost Orchid as an ornament.  Talk about value added.  Errrr... well... Jack Skellington would certainly approve.  And maybe Charles Dickens as well.  

Florida's Ghost Orchid, as it is, already has some degree of variation.  But do we really want to gamble its existence on the slim chance that it has enough variation to succeed in modern Florida?  Why not hedge our bets by greatly increasing the amount of variation that it has?

Rather than just having one Ghost Orchid...Florida could have a wide variety of them.  We could give them labels based on their niche type.  The original/current ghost orchid would be the Shady Cypress Ghost Orchid...then there would be the Sunny Cypress Ghost Orchid...and the Orange Ghost Orchid...and the Christmas Ghost Orchid...and the Limestone Ghost Orchid...and so on.

Would it matter to some kid in Florida two hundred years from now that the Ghost Orchid he discovered flowering on the mango tree in his backyard was different than the Ghost Orchid that was adapted to prehistoric Florida?  I really don't think so.  And neither would whichever moth benefited from the orchid's nectar.   Both the moth and the kid would linger longer in the garden as a direct result of the Ghost Orchid blooming on the mango tree.  Perhaps with newfangled video technology the kid could easily and professionally document the moth pollinating the orchid.   Not sure though if his video would be as high quality as my video of a hummingbird hawk-moth pollinating phlox in Afghanistan...




Like I stated in the beginning, it's entirely possible that I'm wrong.  Maybe herclivation isn't the best approach.  But it's based on the fundamentally sound principle that we should avoid putting too many eggs in one basket...

First, diversity often enhances the robustness of complex systems.  By robustness, I mean the ability to maintain functionality (Jen 2005) rather than analytic stability.  Systems that lack diversity can lose functionality.  History has many examples of failure through lack of diversity, the potato famine being among the most notable.  The potato must be counted among the most precious of gifts introduced into Europe during the age of exploration.  Of the thousands of varieties of potato grown in Central and South America at their disposal, the Europeans imported primarily two.  This lack of genetic variation presented a huge target for parasites.  When the potato blight hit, it found field up field of genetically similar potatoes.  Though nearly a million Irish perished, even more relocated to America.  Diversity at the community level - America had a different mix of crops from Ireland - minimized the global impact of the blight.  Had every country been subsisting on potatoes as Ireland had, the famine would have been an even worse calamity.

Second, diversity drives innovation and productivity.  In biology, the forces of mutation and recombination are well known to be primary sources of innovation.  In economies, variation and experimentation also lead to innovation, and, as Arthur (2009) convincingly shows, so does recombination.  In fact, recombination may be the biggest driver of economic and scientific innovation.  As for productivity, I've covered some of this terrain in an earlier book (Page 2007a), but it's worth repeating.  Whether one looks at ecosystems, empires, or cities, greater diversity for the most part correlates with greater productivity.  Cities that are more diverse are more productive and more innovative. - Scott E. Page, Diversity and Complexity   

Luckily, tens of thousands of pioneers wouldn't have to be housed all in one starship. Spreading people out among multiple ships also spreads out the risk. Modular ships could dock together for trade and social gatherings, but travel separately so that disaster for one wouldn't spell disaster for all, says Smith. 

When 10,000 people are housed in one starship, there's a potential for a giant catastrophe to wipe out almost everyone onboard. But when 10,000 people are spread out over five ships of 2000 apiece, the damage is limited. - Sarah Fecht, How Many People Does It Take to Colonize Another Star System?   

When a great company, or even a great merchant, has twenty or thirty ships at sea, they may, as it were, insure one another. The premium saved upon them all, may more than compensate such losses as they are likely to meet with in the common course of chances. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations   

Farming is inherently risky. Weather, insects and disease, over which you have limited control or none at all, can wipe you out. One of the ways farmers manage risk is to plant variety. Okay, powdery mildew got your strawberries, but the broccoli’s going gangbusters.  For farmers, crops that are given guaranteed protection from both losses and price drops are lower-risk propositions. - Brian Stauffer, Farm bill: Why don’t taxpayers subsidize the foods that are better for us?   

Right now the Ghost Orchid is in two baskets (Florida and Jamaica) three baskets (Florida, Cuba and the Bahamas) which means that it's safer than if it was just in one basket.  By this same basic principle...it would be safer if it grew in a wider range of habitat types.  This could be accomplished by crossing it with D. funalis and other closely related species.  Introducing a "highly variable hybrid swarm" into suitable habitats in Florida would help us hedge our bets against unforeseen changes.

Again, I'm not saying that herclivation is the right answer...I'm just saying that it deserves serious consideration.

**********************************************


*plants and animals, most remote in the scale of nature, are bound together by a web of complex relations. [...] I have [...] reason to believe that humble-bees are indispensable to the fertilisation of the heartsease (Viola tricolor), for other bees do not visit this flower. From experiments which I have tried, I have found that the visits of bees, if not indispensable, are at least highly beneficial to the fertilisation of our clovers; but humble-bees alone visit the common red clover (Trifolium pratense), as other bees cannot reach the nectar. Hence I have very little doubt, that if the whole genus of humble-bees became extinct or very rare in England, the heartsease and red clover would become very rare, or wholly disappear. The number of humble-bees in any district depends in a great degree on the number of field-mice, which destroy their combs and nests; and Mr. H. Newman, who has long attended to the habits of humble-bees, believes that 'more than two thirds of them are thus destroyed all over England.' Now the number of mice is largely dependent, as every one knows, on the number of cats; and Mr. Newman says, 'Near villages and small towns I have found the nests of humble-bees more numerous than elsewhere, which I attribute to the number of cats that destroy the mice.' Hence it is quite credible that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers in a district might determine, through the intervention first of mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district! - Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

Hercules, Hercutherm, Hybridize This and Hercules

Back in April 2010 I took this photo of my Aloe Hercules (from Rancho Soledad)...


 

Here's the same guy less than 5 years later...

Green Thumbprint

Reply to: Weird Succulent!

*********************************************

I'm always talking about plants...it's pretty ridiculous.   Actually I recently thought about walking around my neighborhood knocking on doors and asking people if they wanted some free Aloe thraskii seedlings.  I have two flats worth.  LOL...I just tried to imagine people's reactions.  *awkward*

I'm very socially inept...but it would be kinda neat to walk around and see how much variation there was among the siblings.  I think some of them have Aloe vaombe as their other parent.  Around 5% of the seedlings have leaves that are noticeably wider and redder.  Plus, they put out their second leaves sooner than the others...hybrid vigor perhaps...hopefully.

Maybe I could avoid the awkward interactions by just leaving the seedlings on people's porches.  Perhaps I could do this once a year...kinda like a creepy Santa Claus....errrrr...Aloe Claus...wearing a dried Hercules leaf like a necktie?  Should we pick one day of the year where we all go around the neighborhood leaving small gift plants on people's porches?  Who do we have to call about starting a new national holiday?  If anybody left any edibles on my porch I'd have to find somebody to trade with.  Unless it was a longan seedling.  Or a coconut seedling.

Maybe the bees will bribe me to be Aloe Claus.  They LOVE thraskii...it really closely matches their preferences.  How many jars of honey would I have to find on my porch in order for me to go around disseminating thraskii to all my neighbors?  5 jars?

Hmmm...I just remembered that when I was growing up...my mom persuaded several of the neighbors to plant Jacarandas as street trees...and she even paid for some of them.  She's long gone but the trees are still there...blooming so nicely...and then making a mess.

Has anybody else left a noticeable green thumbprint on their neighborhood?  I wonder who left their green thumbprint on my neighborhood...the street trees are really really tall Washingtonia robustas...



It's no joke when their dead fronds fall!

If I disseminated thraskii to my neighbors...once they were large enough...it would be super cool to leave this miniature orchid on people's porches.  In this zoomed out photo you can see that it's growing on an Aloe.  That would be my green thumbprint...a neighborhood with a bunch of miniature orchids growing all over a bunch of tree Aloes.

*********************************************

Lots more on the topic of green thumbprints... The Eden Exercise

Questionable Uses of Society's Limited Resources

Reply to: Proposed changes to UK nursery regulation

***************************************

It doesn't seem like you have to register plants that you trade with other people.  Well...as long as you're not a professional operator.   Maybe we should have to register plants that we trade with each other.  Then perhaps the government can send me a notification before I give Aeschynanthus speciosus to Monica for the 12th time.  I visited her and noticed Aeschynanthus speciosus growing here...and there...and there...and there...  And at first I thought that she had done so well with it that she had been able to spread it around her yard.  But then I realized that I had on several occasions unwittingly given her cuttings of Aeschynanthus speciosus.  If I had remembered that I had already given her a cutting then I wouldn't have offered it to her again.  I would have offered it to Steve instead.  Because it's not like I have enough of it that I could give 12 cuttings to each of my plant friends.  I wish I did have that much of it.  Epiphyllum strictum is a different story.  I have enough to give 20 cuttings to each of my plant friends.  But Aeschynanthus speciosus looks far better in a tree.  

I'd also like it if the government could remind me to collect pollen from my Aeschynanthus evrardii.  I'd like to try and cross it with Aeschynanthus gracilis "Pagoda Roof".  I have no idea if that cross is even possible...as the plants seem fairly dissimilar.

Speaking of which, it would be nice if the government created a database of every single cross that anybody has tried and whether it was successful or not.  I'd hate to waste my time trying to reinvent the wheel.  Plus, the database has to have a photo of all the crosses...and of the parents.

I'd also like to see a list of all the plants grown outdoors year around within a 50 mile radius of where I live.  There might already be a website that does this.  But I want it to be mandatory.  I think we'd appreciate the nudge.

With all that data...it shouldn't be too hard to learn my plant preferences and offer some excellent plant recommendations.  Of course the recommendations should be heavily influenced by biodiversity considerations.  If there aren't enough tropical blueberries in cultivation...then my recommendations should be prioritized accordingly.

The government should really facilitate ex-situ conservation.  Like, they should show up at our doors with awesome and rare plants.  They'll pay us even.  The amount of money they give us would be determined by how rare a plant is.  Of course the government will conduct random visits to ensure that the plants are thriving.

The government should also pay us every time we propagate a plant.  The more rare a plant is, the more money we should get paid each time we increase the population of the plant.  A future where all plants are equally abundant?  That's a lot of regulation.

When I worked in the public sector...I accomplished things.  The same thing is true when I worked in the private sector.  I also accomplished things.  The difference is how my activities were determined.  In the private sector...my activities were determined by demand...but in the public sector my activities were determined by the demands of congress.  Clearly they aren't the same thing.  Demand is when I buy Aeschynanthus speciosus from Kartuz Nursery.  I put my money where my mouth is and this provided the funds for all the necessary associated activities.  The way that society's limited resources were used matched my preferences.

The demands of congress are a different story.  Clearly they don't accurately reflect my preferences.  How could they?  The government doesn't yet monitor my purchases...even if they could...just because I purchased Aeschynanthus speciosus once doesn't mean that I'll purchase it again.  So because congress can't possibly know the preferences of the people...there's a huge gap between how society's limited resources are used...and how they should be used.

There's nothing inherently wrong with having the government do something.  We can have the government do things that societies and companies and individuals are doing and could be doing.  No problem...as long as we replace the demands of congress with the actual demand.  Then we can have soldiers regularly patrol our gardens for slugs and snails...if that's something that we'd actually choose to spend our taxes on.

So if the government comes up with certain activities that don't match your preferences...then you could simply spend your tax dollars on other governmental activities.  Given that all government organizations will want to be funded...it would behoove them to do things that will attract the most positive feedback (tax dollars).

Because sending a letter to some politician doesn't quite communicate our preferences as effectively as just not spending our taxes on a new government program.  And this really won't be the last time that the government comes up with some questionable uses of society's limited resources.  

"Your use of this resource is questionable"...that's what I'd tell somebody if I visited them and noticed that they had planted a Cattleya in the ground.  "Your use of this resource is questionable".  I'd tell that to anybody here in Southern California who doesn't have at least one epiphyte on each of their trees.  "Your use of this resource is questionable."

There are a multitude of questionable uses of society's limited resources.  In fact, most uses of any given resource are questionable.  So it's really not easy to see which ones are most sensical.  Orchids were originally used as packing material.  Not sure if that's true but we should let people avoid what they believe to be questionable and pursue what they believe to make the most sense.

Selaginella Doesn't Smell Like Vanilla

Reply to: a horribly ambitious and terribly long project

*********************************

The other day my hummingbird tried to cross my bougainvillea with my geranium.  The other day I tried to cross my Psychilis krugii with my Sophronitis brevipedunculata*.

The hummingbird and I are having a competition to see who can create the best crosses.  He's probably winning by virtue of creating far more crosses than I do.  Sure, I can cross more things than he can...but he's got the heart of a champion...while I have the heart of a dreamer.  Plus, he's not limited by minor details such as walls, fences, other people's property...

So if a tree Aloe starts naturalizing here in Southern California...chances are good that the hummingbird can take all the credit...errr...blame.  Same thing with Tillandsias.  And Echeverias...and Aeoniums.  

If an Aeonium naturalizes...sure...it would compete with the natives.  Would it compete our Dudleyas out of existence?

We definitely wouldn't have to worry about a Tillandsia competing the natives out of existence.  We have perhaps one native epiphyte...a fern...but I don't think a fern would be completely beat by a Tillandsia.

Should Southern California have only one epiphyte in the wild?  Is that the argument that some are making?  I think we should have 100 different epiphytes completely naturalized here.  Naw, who am I kidding?  I wish there was an infinite variety of epiphytes growing on the trees here.

Not just here of course...but everywhere.  I want to climb our mountains and see Tillandsias and orchids growing on Methuselah trees.  I want to fly to Arizona and see Tillandsias and orchids growing on Saguaros.  And when I fly to Florida I want to be amazed by the diversity of epiphytes on all the trees.  When I'm driving anywhere I should strongly desire to stop the car every 10 feet because I know that I'll be dumbstruck by the variety of epiphytes growing on any tree.  I guess I'd just have to walk everywhere.  It would probably take me forever to go anywhere because every 10 feet I'd look up and say "woah" and use my Google Glasses Go to share the 10 minute video on my facebook page where billions of my followers would all say "woah".  Heathens would wonder what all the "woahing" was about.

How's the argument go?   We have enough species of epiphytic orchids in Florida?  Or is the argument that Southern Florida should have more species than Northern Florida?  Or is the argument that the population size of each species is perfect?  Maybe the argument is that the perfect amount of trees in Florida have the perfect amount of Encyclia tampensis?

Heaven forbid Encyclia tampensis end up in Georgia...right?  I went to infantry boot camp there...Ft. Benning.  I remember eating a wild persimmon before it was ripe enough.  :(  I was always hungry in bootcamp.

So there I would have been...my stomach grumbling...I see a tree with persimmons.  As I grab a persimmon I spot an Encyclia tampensis blooming on the branch.  *woah*   Good thing that never happened.

Good thing it only happened once when I was stationed in Panama.  There we were...struggling, slipping, sliding single file through the dense jungle.  Each of us carrying around 100 pounds...sweat dripping...wait a minute vines...black palm spines...crazy caterpillars... and then just one time...right in front of me was an orchid in bloom on a tree.  *woah*  I turned to my buddy behind me, pointed at the orchid and said "woah".  For some reason he wasn't dumbstruck.  It wasn't magical for him.  The jungle wasn't transformed into a cathedral where the holy of most holies could burn his eyes.  He didn't realize he was suddenly in the presence of the sacred.  What a heathen.

What orchid was it?  That's a good question because...some orchids are more magical than others?  How unmagical would it have been if the orchid had been Sobennikoffia robusta?  Maybe at least -100 on the magic scale.  The thousands and thousands of trees I passed without a single orchid on them were far more magical.  The first thing that would have popped into my head was my grandfather saying, "a place for everything and everything in its place".

Me: Hey you!  You're in the wrong place!
Robusta:  What's wrong with this place?
Me: Clearly it's not Madagascar
Robusta:  So?  I'm an epiphyte, my place is on a tree.  This is a tree so this is my place.
Me: But you're crowding out the native orchids.
Robusta:  *looks around*  You think there's a long line for this real estate?

Oh, now I really want to cross Sobennikoffia robusta with Dendrophylax funalis.  If I lived in Florida and did the cross...then heaven forbid the horror show should escape into the wild.  Sobenniphylax would take all of Dendrophylax lindenii's real estate.  Even worse if they crossed?  Heaven forbid I artificially create a fitter monopodial orchid that spread like soft butter over warm bread.  Eh?

The 11th commandment...

Thou shalt not create a fitter monopodial orchid.

God works in mysterious ways?  So does my hummingbird.  I really don't think he's all there though.

If we care about the continued existence of monopodial orchids...shouldn't we be striving to create fitter ones?  Survival depends on fitness and fitness depends on the combination of "inputs".  Therefore we limit fitness by limiting possible input combinations.

Limiting input combinations is putting too many eggs in the same basket.  It's making the argument that a certain combination of inputs provides sufficient fitness.  No, there are always better combinations of inputs.  This is because the earth is always getting hotter, colder, drier, wetter...it's always changing.  If we want more, rather than less, orchids in the future...given that we don't have a crystal ball...it would behoove us to hedge our bets.

Maybe the future will be too dry and hot for Dendrophylax funalis, Dendrophylax lindenii and Sobennikoffia robusta...but just right for Sobenniphylax?  Nobody can know now whether this is true.  But we can know that we decrease our chances of success by limiting the combination of inputs.

Imagine a tree with many different epiphytes.  It's swarming with many different pollinators.  Each one conducting countless crazy crosses.  Now imagine a myriad of these trees/laboratories.  This is how we hedge our bets.  This is how we try and ensure that the future is as magical as possible.  

So please cross lindenii with...

Aerangis somalensis
Angraecum erectum
Campylocentrum
Chiloschista
Cleisostoma
Cyrtorchis
Gastrochilus formosanus
Jumellea
Microcoelia
Neofinetia falcata
Papilionanthe teres
Pelatantheria insectifera
Phalaenopsis taenialis
Plectorrhiza tridentata
Rangaeris
Renanthera imschootiana
Rhynchostylis retusa
Sarcochilus
Sobennikoffia
Vanda coerulea/tricolor

Attach the crosses to your trees and let's learn which combination of inputs creates the fittest individual.  Whichever one makes it to Ft. Benning first is the winner.  Whichever orchid distracts hungry/tired soldiers the longest is the winner.  Whichever orchid creates the most magic is the winner.

*doesn't taste like an enchilada...and Selaginella doesn't smell like Vanilla

The Efficacy of CITES

My reply to VERY ILLEGAL!!!!!!!!...

***********************************

Breaking the law is breaking the law unfortunately, how ever stupid the law is. However, what I'm worried about with CITEs is the way it makes all the plants stay in one location. If the plants are not widespread in cultivation, and some natural disaster wipes out there natural home, what then? The only reason lots of people want to poach them from the wild is because they're not common in cultivation, so although restricting how you can sell seeds is maybe helping, in the long run it's just making them more rarer in cultivation, so people who do get away with poaching are making more money off them, and will want to do it more. Which is REALLY helping the situation.

If a lot of the seeds and plants were in cultivation, then they'd be worth no more than any other sarr, so a lot of the poaching would go down, because who would go to the trouble of poaching 'common' plants?

Just my two cents worth:) - kath (context)

I largely agree with this. If there's one thing I recommend to plant enthusiasts it's to not keep all their eggs in the same basket.

When it comes to dissemination...incentives matter. It takes time, energy and effort to disseminate a plant. All that time and energy could be put to other uses. Therefore the benefit of distributing a plant has to exceed the opportunity cost in order for the effort to be "worth" it.

So if you want a plant to go from rare/scarce to common/abundant...then respect and appreciate the profit involved. Without that incentive...the alternative uses of people's time and energy become more attractive. Without profit, there's not enough incentive to figure out how to take something that's scarce and make it more abundant. Without profit, there's no way to truly know what other people value. Resources can't flow in the most valuable directions if we don't know what people truly value.

Regarding the efficacy of CITES...here are some passages from Harold Koopowitz's book Orchids and their Conservation...

The chance that [CITES] listing would even help in their rescue from extinction is uncertain and the lists become difficult to regulate if they become too cumbersome. Many of the species referred to here are not threatened by trade but by land conversion and deforestation. In addition, other species will become extinct without our ever being aware that they were threatened, while others will become extinct without us even being aware of their existence. One can predict that, as the ineffectiveness of CITES to save species becomes ever more widely appreciated, the reluctance to support the convention will become more evident.

The usual pattern, however, is more like that of Zambia where it is legal to turn a branch bearing live orchids into charcoal but it is illegal to take the orchids off the branch to export before burning the wood.

Consider another scenario. You are a professor at a major university and one of your doctoral students calls from Costa Rica. He has picked up some orchid plants from broken branches on the forest floor. The usual fate of orchids that fall is premature death. This is a young man who is intensely committed to conservation and hates to see anything die. You have to tell him to abandon the plants because it would be too difficult for him to get CITES papers.

The amount of money spent annually to enforce CITES must be enormous. To this must be added the cost of travelling to the various meetings of committees and conventions. If only part of the money spent on CITES over the last 25 years had been made available to actual and real conservation activities, such as buying up forested lands or policing preserves, the world would now be a better place and conservation would have been far better served.

The question is...how much does America value in-situ conservation? Well...we can tally how much money people give to non-profit organizations dedicated to purchasing/protecting habitats. But surely some people feel like some portion of their tax dollars are being used to protect endangered species. Perhaps they don't make donations to conservation non-profits because they feel that they are already contributing via their taxes.

The solution is to allow taxpayers to choose where their taxes go. It's the solution in the sense that it would allow us to determine exactly where America's heart is. Where people put their treasure reveals where their heart is. The Bible got that one right.

Step 1: Allow people to choose where their taxes go Step 2: Discern the disparity between where America's heart is and where it should be Step 3: Disseminate the relevant information to try and help people change their priorities

To learn more please read this tax choice FAQ.

Now, how many countries have a government organization dedicated to protecting the environment? What are the chances that all of them are equally effective? What are the chances that all habitats are equally important/valuable? I think that people shouldn't be limited to only giving taxes to their government...they should be free to give their taxes to any government. So if you think that the Brazilian EPA is creating more value than our EPA is...then you should be free to allocate your taxes accordingly. This would be a global free trade agreement for public goods.