How gullible I am! I read the idea in a textbook and have believed in it till now.
The idea of “invasive” species wiping out native species is a “species xenophobia,” according to June 9th, 2011, Nature Podcast. It is based on no scientific data.
A lot of money has been spent in vain to get rid of non-native species which were supposed to be doing harm to the environment, because those new comers are actually not affecting the native species very much and sometimes even doing good to them. Also, even when they are doing harm, there are not really effective ways to remove them once they have established their position in their new environment. It is rather practical to accept the new ecosystem with the new species.
People put two phenomena, a decreasing number of a local species and an increasing number of species which is not indigenous, and concluded that the latter is related to the former, the same thinking of causal relationship between a flue and a surge of immigrants from a certain country.
What is problematic and scary is that the information, the idea of invasive species, has ended up being written in a textbook and I, and probably other readers of the textbook, assumed that it was a scientifically proved fact.
Note:
09 June 2011:
This week, cyber warfare, species xenophobia and the chemistry of water. Plus, the best of the rest from this week's Nature.
http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/archive.html
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