When talking about "non-contributors" and "detractors": Dr. Tallamy seems to be unaware of the fact that the soil food web is by far the largest carbon flux pathway. While specialised herbivory, say through the caterpillar or gallwasp pathway is more efficient, by mass it still does not compare to the nematode (soil) pathway. So, no matter what plant, invasive or not, contributes massively to ecosystem health. It is estimated that 46% of net primary production is allocated belowground. In some ecosystems, such as scrublands it may be as much as 90%. This is notable since belowground heterotrophy is much more efficient than aboveground (decreased transpiration, decreased oxygenation, increased buffering against adverse conditions, among other factors). Furthermore, plant senescence and the associated soil decomposition of plant matter, while very inefficient, is still a massive input by mass into the heterotrophic group. Yes, specialised herbivory is important, but to call non-natives "non-contributors" or even "detractors" is very ignorant or downright dishonest. edit: It's hard for me not to become uncivilised when hearing his pseudoscientific comments of "detracting energy".
Love your passion , it is evident in your presentations and you live it! I just joined homegrownnationalpark because my 1 acre property has dozens of mature oak trees, not sure of the age, but they have to be between 80-100 years old as a gorgeous specimen white oak is easily 80 feet tall with the lowest branches at 40 feet. When I bought this property, I noticed the oaks were the messiest trees I ever came across, between what they dropped year round, there were literally tens of thousands of caterpillars everywhere and what we thought were spider webs were tons and tons of caterpillar webbing as they dropped from the trees, lol. This dry upland property is perfect for oaks as when there is a mess of acorns, there are hundreds of oak seedlings the next or second spring. I doubt many other tree types can tolerate this sterile upland ridge soil, but the oaks revel in it. (Hickories always get topped by the fierce winter winds we get, but the oaks stand tall.)
"The ecological I.Q. of this country is really low. We don't get that we are living off the life support that healthy ecosystems provide. If we don't support those ecosystems, we don't have that life support," Doug Tallamy said.
a good reply to people who are not supportive or don't get that our local ecosystems support our life might be "it doesn't take a genius, Einstein." jk
Hot take: Your North American ecosystems (on the whole) have actually become healthier since the European settlement and especially since industrialisation. (I can provide the reasoning for this per your request) As an ex eco-radical, this was also difficult for me to accept. Truth is, for some reason we want to believe that everything is going down the drain. It may be another reason for some of us to blame our shortcomings upon. Like the "I cannot succeed, it's my environment that isn't good enough" -type of thing. Once we understand that industrialism (no matter how egotistical and short-sighted it is) has had a net positive effect on nature, we sort of lose our identity of a person that "fights for the voiceless" or that "cares about our life support". Naturally, we fight against this. We're not really in an ecological war, we're in an emotional war. Read Ted Kaczynsky's "Industrial Society and Its Future" Especially his treatise of the power principle perfectly explains this in more detail.
To blame mountain biking, recreation, and even development, while largely ignoring the impact of livestock production on wildlife recovery in MT seems negligent. There are roughly 1.1 million people in MT, and over 2.6 million cows. All of the same justifications for killing Grizzlies due to human-bear conflict also apply to livestock-bear conflict. We've largely handed over our wild Public Lands to privately owned livestock, often to the detriment of our native wildlife (Grizzlies, Wolves, Bison, etc).
Well structured, accessible talk on regional and global scales highlighting the causes and consequences. I had my class watch this and they were impressed and moved. Thanks!
