Survey priority

[Chuck Parker]

Robert Mesibov wrote:
>James Adams has posted an 'I agree, but...' response to my 'ATBI
>where?!' remarks. I applaud his personal attempts to sample as widely as
>possible, not just in reserves, but he seems to be missing the point.

With all due respect, I believe it is Dr. Mesibov who is missing the point.
Surely, all of the subscribers to this list are aware of the biodiversity crisis
and most want very much to help in the struggle to stop it, to slow it, or, if
all else fails, to doucment it.  Some are in the very enviable position to be
able to go to the scenes of the worst degradation and do just what Dr. Mesibov
calls for.  Many are not.  My personal position does not leave me free to go
study the biodiversity in any of the world's most endangered biodiversity
hotspots.  I fully expect Dr. Mesibov to be there on my behalf.  However, I do
not intend to be left on the sidelines looking on while others go off to the
hotspots and I am stuck in a national park.  I will participate as best I can by
being actively involved in the ATBI in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
And, I totally reject the notion that I am wasting my time or the world's
resources, financial or taxonomic, by working on this project.

One of Mesibov's complaints is that national parks are not the areas that are
losing biodiversity the fastest.  Fortunately, at least in the case of North
America, this may well be true (I am not positive about that for all of our
national parks, nor am I certain that this assertion holds for all national
parks in other areas of the globe).  However, each year for the last several
years the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has been ranked as one of the
three most endangered national parks in the United States by the
non-governmental National Parks Conservation Association.  (Everglades National
Park is the hands-down "winner" each year.)  The reasons for this ranking are
many and complex.  They include the highest levels of sulfate and nitrate
deposition of almost anywhere in North America; extremely high levels of ozone
at high elevations that do not decrease at night as they do in urban areas; a
long list of exotic plant, insect, vertebrate, and disease organisms that have
devastated or seriously affected native communities; continuing development and
fragmentation of the surrounding land; and the highest levels of visitation of
any national park in the country (and, thus, probably in the world).  It is true
that logging and other egregious activities no longer take place within park
boundaries, but prior to the creation of the park approximately 60% of the
landscape was clear-cut in the most hideous manner.  Still, the park contains
the largest remaining "old growth" forests in eastern North America.

So, what does this mean for our efforts in the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory
in the Smokies?  I think it means several things.  First, we better do it now
rather than later, as the conditions here will continue to deteriorate for the
forseeable future.  For example, 75% of the known range of Fraser fir, a
Southern Appalachian endemic species, occurs within the park boundaries.  An
exotic insect, the balsam woolly adelgid, has killed at least 90% of the Fraser
fir trees in the park.  This will insect cannot be controlled by any known
means, so it is here to stay.  The park also contains numerous stands of old
growth hemlock, the oldest and most impressive stands of this species in the
Southern Appalachians.  Another exotic insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid, is
now killing hemlocks in areas within view of the park.  Again, there is no known
control for this insect.  An anthracnose infection has killed 10s of thousands
of dogwood trees in the park.  This depressing list continues.  As these species
are devastated their communities change drastically.  The loss of Fraser fir has
caused documented changes in the forest, shrub, bird, and invertebrate
communities.  These changes are documented only because someone was here and
foresightful enough to begin inventorying the Fraser fir ecosystem before it was
almost totally destroyed.  However, no one was here to document the
mid-elevation ecosystems of the park before the turn of the century when they
were dominated by American chestnut.  This species was eliminated from the park
(and almost everywhere else ) by the chestnut blight.  What biodiversity was
lost when that disaster happened?  We can only guess.  I don't want to be
responsible for future generations having to guess at what was lost at some
later point because I did not try to address the biodiveristy issues in the park
now.

Second, as Dr. Mesibov states in his message, taxonomists must "...document as
much as possible of the world's vanishing biota while we still can."
Fortunately, not all of the biodiversity of the world is in the most seriously
threatened places.  Much of the world that needs to be inventoried is elsewhere.
 And, some of the greatest biodiversity of some groups is in those other areas.
Slime molds, salamanders, ichneumonoid wasps,  millipedes, and branchiobdellids
are among the groups which have greater biodiversity in temperate rather than
tropical regions.  Work on those groups may well be more meaningful globally in
temperate settings.  Certainly, we don't want to miss a slime mold from a
tropical setting that is at risk, but for the broader understanding of what it
means to be a slime mold, and why slime molds are distributed the way they are,
and how they relate to the biotic and abiotic environments in which they are
found, it may well be more fruitful from a global point of view to put
proportionally more effort into the study of slime molds in temperate regions.
Even for those groups which are much more speciose in other regions (I work on
caddisflies, which are much more species rich in the tropics than elsewhere), I
do not belive it is responsible to forego the study of those groups in the less
well endowed areas.  The caddisflies of the Smokies deserve as much protection
as those of any other region, are affected by pollution and changes in the
forest communities, and, believe it or not, we don't already know all of the
species here and how they will respond to all the threats facing the park.

This is where Dr. Mesibov says we need to prioritize.  Fine.  I have prioritized
within the parameters that I have to work with, and I reject that I have to work
elsewhere in order to contribute.  I also reject the notion that others, even
those who are in a position to work on Mesibov's front line, are being negligent
by helping with the Smokies ATBI.  (In fact, many of our cooperators in this
project do work elsewhere, and often are out of touch with us while they work in
Panama, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Mongolia, or other locations.)  Most of our
cooperators work part-time on the Smokies ATBI.  Some have students who work on
the ATBI while pursuing degrees on related topics.  Each of them has made a
choice to assist to one extent or another because they feel the project has
merit.  Each, I'm sure, has passionate feelings about the biodiversity crisis
and what needs to be done about it.  Fortunately, they have decided that some of
their time and effort should be directed to the ATBI.

Their choice certainly wasn' t based on finances.  The Smokies ATBI is being run
by a non-profit organization called Discover Life in America (DLIA,
http://www.discoverlife.org) and it is funded by donations.  It is NOT a US
government funded effort.  At this early stage, DLIA gets limited funds from the
government, but the goal is to steadily increase the amount of funding from
non-governmental sources so that eventually much more than 50%, hopefully more
than 75%, of the funding will come those sources.  The National Park Service has
an agreement with DLIA to conduct the ATBI in the Smokies.  As it progresses,
and eventually is seen as a success, the plan is to use the same model to
develop ATBI in other locations, even in some of Dr. Mesibov's preferred
locations if it can be managed.  We aren't there yet.  We are developing
conceptual and working procedures for conducting an ATBI.  What we are doing is
different from what Costa Rica is doing, different from what Dan Janzen is doing
in Guanacaste, different from what is going on in Hawaii.

If our model works, it may be just the thing to use elsewhere.  Time will tell.
However, by not doing anything now, I would be relegated to standing on the
sidelines watching the biodiversity crisis unfold.
And, judging from many of the responses to this thread, wondering just what
exactly anyone was doing anywhere in the world.

Chuck Parker

ps, Sorry for the length.  I was just getting a little perturbed.
====================================================

Charles R. Parker
Research Aquatic Biologist
US Geological Survey
1314 Cherokee Orchard Road
Gatlinburg, TN 37738

(865) 436-1704
Chuck_Parker at usgs.gov