Pursuing praxis

Lesee, where was I….

Oh yes. We’ve said buh-bye to Stanford and Davis, Silicon Valley is either soggy or has moved to high ground (not without considerable cost), SF is now two islands instead of one, Berkeley’s enjoying fresh fish n’ chips… what about the precious salt-marshes, and the 12,000 breeding pairs of god-knows-what birds (let’s call’m schmatzels; I never had a Polish grandmother)? And the three recently-identified sub-species, upstream on the Sacramento River, that (now that we know about them) are also threatened?

Now, let’s take an historical perspective on marshes too. A marsh, being a combination of certain kinds of plants, and a certain depth of water, is highly subject to changes in water level. Too much water, the plants drown, and you’re left with more bay/lake/river/ocean/whatever, and the critters using the marsh are SOL (for that marsh). The SF bay is a fairly recent phenomenon (c. 8000 years it started trickling in), so all the marshes here (or that were here in the 1800s) are a pretty darn recent phenomenon. And given that most established species last on the order of 100,000- 1-million years, 1) 8000 years is a drop in the bucket even for species, and 2) it’s reasonable to infer that most organisms have ways of moving (individually, and between generations) and repopulating (even if a region of critters gets wiped out). That is, a lineage of organisms *not* capable of withstanding and/or accomodating (over the long haul) significant change would be highly unlikely to get beyond the toddler phase of specieshood.

And in fact, the long-term pattern of ecosystems is one of colonization, expansion and adjustment, stabilization, destabilization (several reasons), collapse/transformation, repeat. And most lineages of organisms suffer regional extinction one or more times, only to recolonize from populations elsewhere and do it all again. In fact, regional death and re-colonization can be part of the meta-strategy/niche of the group. Hard to tell. More research is needed (way way way more research) before we determine that holding things still as best as possible is the best feasible short-term solution to a long-term problem. It makes a lot of effectively arbitrary assumptions about the biological world, many of which are suspect if not false on their face. That’s what scientists *aren’t* supposed to do.

So the SF Bay marshes are an historically recent phenomenon, and only about 5% of marshes (from the 1800s) remain. Understandably this crimps the style of a lot of marsh-using critters, and it’s therefore expected that there are fewer critters than there used to be. A lot fewer. Only 12,000 breeding pairs of schmatzels or whatever. But, it’s not like these marshes were always there, and in terms of biotic and abiotic history, they represent an unprecedented regional surplus of opportunity for marsh-dwelling critters. So really, maybe we’re looking at the whole "low numbers" problem the wrong way. Maybe we’re coming off a local maximum of bird population numbers, and effectively returning to the norm of the last 40,000 years or so.

Well, the bird aspect of this story was the topic of a seminar attended by our hero in the not-so-distant past. The historical aspect of this story, extending beyond 250 years ago, was part of what our hero discussed in seminar yesterday, and a perspective he conveyed to the ornithologist at the end of that talk. The ornithologist, visibly agitated by that challenge to the welfare of local schmatzels, eventually burst out with, "Won’t you leave!!" Our hero pressed his point, and the angry ornithologist spouted forth with, "I don’t give a shit about the last 4.5 billion years, and I don’t give a shit about the next 4.5 billion years!!" A little more discussion, and our hero got the A.O. to admit that he didn’t care about anything after his own death. Being a conservation biologist in addition to an A.O., this is eyebrow-raising to say the least. Then our hero learned that not only was the A.O. not a graduate student (as he had assumed), but he was the chair of the department!

God save the schmatzels. With folks like this making policy recommendations, He’s the only one who can.  

But, then again, seeing’s that schmatzels have gotten along without the aid of god for… well if you trace it back, you’ve got 3.5 billion years of life continuity, without His divine non-existent help. Not only can the schmatzel take care of itself jim-dandy-thank-you, a few informed scientists and rational policy makers can make sure both humans and schmatzels are here well into the next centi-millenium.

 
Next time: "Hitting bottom, or, Why the Bay might not be totally fucked: A perspective from benthic foraminifera, Pleistocene to Present."

I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your waitresses.