Inclusive Biodiversity
My mother’s family lived in Kansas City, Missouri. Her brother, our Uncle Bill, was decidedly racist. He used the ‘n’ word, among others, to disparagingly refer to some of his neighbors. On one drive back to our hometown, my brother and I asked Mom why Uncle Bill was so angry and unfriendly. I have a vivid memory of trying to understand why the color of one’s skin made a difference to my uncle but not to her. I don’t remember her exact words, but the notions of kindness and equality she shared embedded deeply.
I first encountered the phrase inclusive biodiversity in a blog written by a gardener named Marianne Willburn: In Defense of Inclusive Biodiversity - GardenRant. (Check out one of her books here). We all are aware that racism exists within the human species. It can come as a surprise to learn that it also can permeate our interactions with members of other species. Some people apply negative stereotypes to plants that travelled from their ancestral home by means of a migrant human. They treat such plants differently than those who evolved in the region to which they themselves moved. Natives and aliens; us and them; insiders and outsiders. One group is loved, the other is disrespected.
I was an extreme nativist for a while, early in my academic career. My views have changed over the years. Glimmerings of the motivations for that change can be found in this piece excerpted from Bringing Home the Wild: A Riparian Garden in a Southwest City.
MAKING LISTS
TREE TOBACCO: DON’T ASTERISK ME
I love to make lists. Creating order in a chaotic world, even if illusory, is calming. I maintain a list of the dogs I’ve walked at the shelter where I volunteer (6,111) and of the species we have documented in our ecosystem garden (760). The garden list is cataloged by taxonomic rank, and Matt and I engage, playfully, in class warfare. Who will win? Class Insecta is running neck and neck with the flowering plants, and—oh, look—counting that new hoverfly, they have taken the lead. Go, Team Arthropod! No, I’m not competitive, why do you ask?
Species richness is an evocative way to refer to the number of species in an area. I have not directly compared our species richness to that of the restored riparian patches on the nearby Salt River, but if this was a contest, and that was our metric of comparison, I bet we would win, with our entanglement of plantings and wildlings.
“But how many are natives?” some might ask. In my academic life as a plant ecologist, I would meticulously track down the origin of each species a plant ecologist, I would meticulously track down the origin of each species at a study site, as best as one could, and attach a little asterisk, as was the done thing, to differentiate the “exotics” from the “natives.” I didn’t go as far as some conservation biologists who refused to even include the newcomers on their site lists. If I apply that asterisking technique in our garden, I find that about half of the species on the list evolved in the region in which we reside. In terms of biomass, though? The Sonoran Desert regionals are the clear “winners” by far.
“Does it really matter?” I might respond. This asterisking habit harkens back to Darwin’s era and, I believe, has hardened into a burden. “Is it native?” is often the first question a student asks about a plant they see in the field, distracting them from more pressing questions. Preoccupation with provenance, I believe, diverts conservationists, as well as gardeners, from critical issues. Think: climate change, food security, or extinction (and no, introduced plants are not the main cause or even the second; there are peer-reviewed papers if you wish to read for yourself).
I was an enabler, I am sad to admit. Yes, once upon a time, I was deep into the nativist movement. Like many in my field, I was firmly entrenched in the extremist belief that we should allow no creatures in “our” region other than those who could verify that their ancestors evolved here. Slowly, I dug my way out of that hole. I realized what a fraught proposition it is to accurately determine who came from where, and when, and how they have evolved and intermingled since. And the words of the botanist Sir Arthur Tansley reminded me that ecosystems are but mental isolates with no definite boundaries. I learned first-hand through my own research, and from that of others, that place-of-origin does not map neatly onto functional capacity in our ever-changing world. The costs of “invasive aliens” have been oversold while their benefits have been overlooked.
The hypocrisy began nagging at me, too. If one requires that all plants in a restored area or in one’s garden be from the American Southwest, how can one justify eating Eurasian wheat (Triticum aestivum) or soya beans (Glycine max) that were grown who knows where? How can those of us, whose ancestors came from another continent not very long ago, live here ourselves? I am all for respecting the Indigenous inhabitants, but in a comprehensive-lifestyle way. If invader’s guilt is wracking our being, let’s not redirect it towards those green creatures who came with us as we traveled the globe.
One such asterisked plant who invited herself to our garden is tree tobacco (Nicotiana glauca). She is stunningly gorgeous—skin so glaucous and leaves so huge. Like other mothers of her flighty style—she is a pioneer who reproduces early and dies young—she endows her plentiful children with few resources. Their miniscule size allows the seeds to adhere to muddy bird toes and fly across the globe, or at least hopscotch their way to new lands. She feeds the birds, fixes carbon, and stabilizes soil, but is too prolific for some. Sometimes we penalize success. She has gone too far, some say. She did not stay in her place.
One of my summer projects, many moons ago, entailed pulling tree tobacco from land along the Salt River that was being restored. Nicotiana glauca had no “papers” to prove she belonged and was put on their “list.” I recall getting dizzy as compounds from her ripped tissues infused onto mine, which may be what triggered me to stop in my tracks and wonder what I was doing. Following orders to kill creatures I barely knew. And what an impressive plant she is once you get to know her. In many locales, hummingbirds pollinate her flashy yellow flowers, but in some areas where they are not around? She adjusts her stigmas closer to her anthers and pollinates herself. Who are we to stop her journey?
That moment began my shift away from native purism. In retrospect, I now think of myself as having been indoctrinated. I had learned, in texts and lectures, that exotic species were “bad,” a condemnation that perhaps belongs in church (though that, too, is debatable) but certainly not in school. After propagating this notion myself for a while, doubts, like the green plants themselves, began to creep in. I began questioning the use of tribal, divisive terms such as exotic and alien that separate us from them. I regret my role in helping to propagate the fear and dislike of those who came from somewhere else.
Tree tobacco, welcome to our list.
