Asian hornets, bees and Darwin.

irishgeo

After a report of the Asian hornet in Ireland last week. It's now appears to be false report.

But it got me thinking as the article said they were a danger to our native bees. We should be protecting our native bees from this invader.

But it got me thinking. Are we interfering with Darwin theory of survival of the fittest if we stopped the Asian hornet from eradicating the normal bees. Maybe the hornet is going to be better for pollination of plants than the bees were. Who knows what genetic advances the hornet has over the bees.


This could apply to many other types of animals. Especially the animals were are trying to stop going extinct. We ourselves only exist because the dinosaurs died off.

Who knows what damage we are doing by saving these animals. Imagine if the dinosaurs had been helped to survive through the event that killed them off. We might not exist.

Survival of the fittest it's a pondering statement. Who are we as humans to try interfere with the statement and nature course by keeping alive animals or plants that nature has decided are for these animals.

It's not for as humans to decide what lives and what dies

Zoo4m8

Something I've often thought about as well, but I reckon where humans are having an impact ,by whatever means, on the survival of a species then there is an obligation to minimise that impact as much as possible.
As it appears that there is almost nowhere on the planet that we haven't despoiled in one way or another this obligation is now very much global.
I'm sure there are those who would argue that we are a natural entity evolved to a very high form and therefore represent 'survival of the fittest' at its most deadly.
But I like to think that 'survival of the fittest' applies only to an environment that hasn't had the dubious benefit of human interference and natural selection is just that , natural..

magicbastarder

irishgeo wrote: »

Who are we as humans to try interfere with the statement and nature course by keeping alive animals or plants that nature has decided are for these animals.

It's not for as humans to decide what lives and what dies

we have already massively interfered with the natural world; that horse has already bolted. check out what megafauna existed in the americas before humans arrived, but are no longer around. giant ground sloths, sabre toothed tigers etc.

it'd be a bit rich for us to (albeit accidentally) artificially introduce species to completely new ecosystems and simply say 'adapt or die' to the native species there. going down that road is leading to a homogenisation and depletion of biodiversity.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Can I suggest people read up on "survival of the fittest" actually means in Darwinian terms?

Wanderer78

Yareli Freezing Storefront wrote:

Can I suggest people read up on "survival of the fittest" actually means in Darwinian terms?

Please do explain, thank you

Mickeroo

It's an interesting thing to think about but ultimately evolution doesn't stick to a plan and is more about adapting to changes in the environment. In a way us "interfering" is just nature taking it's natural course because we''re a part of it in the first place.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Please do explain, thank you

The fittest does not mean the strongest or more numerous or even more suited species in an environment. The term doesn't even refer to species; it refers to individuals. Individuals who acquire adaptations that are favourable for their environment will pass down those adaptations to their offspring. Eventually, only individuals with those favourable adaptations will survive and that is how the species changes over time or evolves through speciation.

It's a huge field and the term is often best avoided, as Darwin himself did not use it in his earliest issues of The Origin. His later use of the term coined by H. Spencer was in relation to a species changing over time and not one species eliminating another in a habitat.

seagull

Yareli Freezing Storefront wrote: »

Can I suggest people read up on "survival of the fittest" actually means in Darwinian terms?

It's nice to know I'm not the only one annoyed by the casual misuse of this term, where the application of the term bears absolutely no relation to the actual meaning.

recedite

Yareli Freezing Storefront wrote: »

The fittest does not mean the strongest or more numerous or even more suited species in an environment. The term doesn't even refer to species; it refers to individuals.

Well, the term could be used at the individual level, but it would be equally valid to use it at the species level.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

recedite wrote: »

Well, the term could be used at the individual level, but it would be equally valid to use it at the species level.

No.

I'm not going to reprint the book here. Read it and see what the great man himself said about it.

recedite

Here's a newspaper article about the alleged hornet.

It was claimed last weekend by a pest control expert from Co. Westmeath that the Asian hornet had been spotted along border between Co. Donegal and Co. Derry....
However, the Irish Pest Control Association (IPCA) have since confirmed that the insect in question was more than likely a horntail wasp.
“Suspected reports of Asian hornet in Ireland are most often of the native Greater horntail wasp”

I think the term "horntail" is a bit of an americanism itself, but they are apparently referring to Urocerus gigas wood wasp.
I have seen a good few of the similar but smaller woodboring ichneumons around, and their behavior is totally different to a wasp or hornet. They don't fly unless they have to, and you can get right up close to them to examine them, without disturbing them, as they are not interested in humans at all.
According to this article, the Giant Asian Hornets can be found in France, and as the wind has been blowing from that direction recently, it seems just as likely that the "pest control expert" was right. But without talking to the guy, its hard to say.

recedite

Yareli Freezing Storefront wrote: »

No.
I'm not going to reprint the book here. Read it and see what the great man himself said about it.

As you mentioned yourself, the term was first coined by Spencer after reading Darwin's book. But the full (long) title of Darwins book was "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life."
The words "races" being there indicates that even Darwin himself did not intend limiting his concept just to individuals.

OpenYourEyes

Just to refer to what I think the OP's point was on the morality or otherwise of humans causing the decline and loss of other species, and whether we should try and stall or reverse that or interfere or worry at all - I think the important point to remember is that humanity has reached our current place in what was more or less an intact ecosystem on a global scale - our current standing is deeply intertwined with the environment we evolved in and developed in. We're now eliminating species and drastically altering ecosystems in the blink of an eye (in evolutionary terms), so the environment we thrived in is now disappearing. I for one would not be confident of our chances of continuing to thrive in the absence of that environment (i.e. the ecologically simplified version we'll be left with in a few generations)

Basically, it's in our interest to keep our environment the way it was, because that stability and predictability has served us well up to now. Removing and adding species, and getting rid of specialist species and ecosystems, will all create both unpredictability and an inability to deal with stochastic events in the future, that will ultimately come back to haunt us.

It's like people talking about the world ending. The world won't end. The planet will still be here - what we should be talking about and concerned about is whether humans will still be here, which is an entirely different thing.

recedite

OpenYourEyes wrote: »

Basically, it's in our interest to keep our environment the way it was.

I don't think its either possible or desirable to keep the environment frozen at one particular point in time. Species can, and do, move about. As the OP suggested, who are we to interfere?
We are the most adaptable of all species, so we will be alright whatever happens.

IMO the key point here is that we should not interfere. If hornets get here by themselves, on the wind, leave them be.

If they are released here accidentally by humans from some freight or whatever, take steps to eradicate them.