I’m not sure if there’s already a discussion about this, but how should species be treated on checklists if they were historically native to an area, went extinct, and were later reintroduced as a different subspecies?
For example, the Alpine marmot (Marmota marmota) was historically present in the Pyrenees but went extinct around the end of the Pleistocene. It was later reintroduced using Marmota marmota marmota, rather than the extinct native subspecies Marmota marmota primigenia.
In this case, should Marmota marmota be considered native on Pyrenean checklists, or should the species be considered introduced altogether, or only the subspecies?
The end of the Pleistocene is 11700 years ago. It’s not part of history, but part of prehistory. So your example doesn’t seem to fit your question.
You might wish to specify whether you’r interested in cases of historic or in cases of pre-historic extinctions, as the answers you get, might depend on the timescale involved.
sorry, my example wasn’t really good. Another example that I thought of was the wild-type rock pigeons in Northern Europe, which are now locally extinct but have been replaced by Feral Pigeons. Should Rock Pigeon as a species still be marked native in, for example, Norway?
Time scales do matter, but whether the taxon was extirpated before or after anthropologists define the beginning of human “history” isn’t really a relevant cutoff in this context.
It seems that this topic is rather subjective, but I will give an example. The Eastern Elk (Cervus canadensis canadensis sensu stricto) was extirpated from Pennsylvania decades ago; now the Rocky Mountian Elk (C. c. nelsoni) has been introduced (or reintroduced) there. There has been a recent suggestion that the two purported subspecies above should be lumped, meaning C. c. canadensis sensu lato has been brought back. This illustrates another facet: subspecies change, and often subspecies are based on the tiniest of differences that cannot be determined except through intensive study; oftentimes there isn’t a difference, especially looking at the genotype.
eBird considers Wild Turkey introduced where reintroduced populations have expanded beyond the species’ original range (e.g. the Pacific coast and most of the Canadian populations), but by this logic resident Canada Geese in urban areas in much North America should be considered introduced as well since they’re probably beyond the original range of Branta canadensis maxima (it seems like this logic has only been applied in Louisiana on eBird at this point). This seems like a slightly different question than the original post though.
Well the native / non-native question is again something different.
I learned in university (Europe) that the cutoff deciding this question is about 1500 AD. So everything that arrived before the Columbian exchange is considered native, and everything arriving during/after is considered non-native.
If I remember right iNat is not using this clear cutoff, but is instead considering everything native that arrived by natural means, and everything non-native arriving with human support. So according to the iNat definition introductions and re-introductions are always non-native/introduced. Make it make sense.
Shouldn’t it be about modern humans in general? If people introduce a species to an area, then it’s anthropogenic. No scientist is defining “anthropogenic” as “during written history” or even “in the last 15,000 years”—those are arbitrary and irrelevant. We should not be excluding most of human existence just because a handful of neolithic cultures biased everything in recent prehistory.
Just keep in mind that species and subspecies are just labels we as humans give to specific groups of organisms; often-times, the lines are, in reality, incredibly blurry.
In my personal opinion, while species is for the most part valid, when it comes to subspecies it can be argued that people get too hung up on genetic purity to the point of losing sight of the forest for the trees. This is especially pertinent when a species is endangered and at risk of extinction - if the population is very low, individuals from historically different subspecies should be crossed to maintain genetic health as if one were to try to keep each subspecies ‘pure’, this would run the risk of inbreeding depression which is the opposite of what we want when preserving rare species.
Also, the notion of subspecies can be used in bad faith arguments. For example, anti-wolf people have argued that the subspecies of wolf reintroduced in Yellowstone was different to the one that historically present in the area, and they use this as an argument against the continued presence of wolves in the area. The reality is the validity of what they term as subspecies is questionable.
Science is always in flux: what may be defined as subspecies may later be either demoted to landrace or variety, or elevated to full species status.
In addition, one cannot divorce conservation from politics and other factors. For example, in an ideal world, India would be able to source Asiatic cheetahs from Iran, and Iran source Asiatic lions from India. The reality is that currently there are far too few Asiatic cheetahs left for any to be captured and moved to a different country. Secondly, the Gujarat government does not even want to translocate its lions to neighbouring Indian states (while disobeying direct court orders in the process) so capturing some Indian lions to a foreign country is out of the question despite a credible ecological case for doing so. For this and other reasons, India has instead used African cheetahs in its ongoing reintroduction project. Same species, same ecological function in similar ecosystems.
So in short, my advice is to not get too hung up on subspecies, but rather look at what ecological role that species can fulfil in the ecosystem it was reintroduced to.
Well Ardea ibis established itself in South-America after humans had created large non-forested areas for big herds of cattle. Means humans created a suitable habitat, so a chance arrival was able to prosper and spread. Means anthopogenic is not really a clear cut thing, but rather quantitative.
I think it’s not that important whether or not actual organisms were intentionally transported, as both the transportation and the intention are in the mayority of range extensions not supported by historical facts / have not been documented anyway. So i would think keeping the often speculative issue of transport and intent separate from the question of native / non-native seems to make sense to me.
I also think that humans are part of nature, so transported by humans actually is ‘by natural means’. But i think we are loosing the main thread here… Question was: Is a historically extinct species native or not, after re-introduction. And what role does (sub-specific) taxonomy play in that question.
To answer the question directly I would consider the species native but the subspecies introduced.
The marmot example is complicated by the time scale and the pigeon example is complicated by the fact that where both subspecies occurs the feral subspecies could be considered an invasive competitor (analogous to Mallards outbreeding Pacific Black Ducks in New Zealand). But in a case where the native subspecies is extinct it seems like a simpler claim to make that at least we have some subspecies of the species present.
This is different to the UK’s terminologies - we have “native” (i.e here since prehistory, or more recent natural, completely unassisted colonists, like the Little Egret - only here since the 1990s, but it got here entirely on it’s own from a natural range extension in Europe), archaeophytes (i.e introduced by humans, before the Columbian exchange, such as Alexanders - which the Romans bought here as a crop about 2000 years ago), and neophytes, human introductions since then.
For the original question: you can mark subspecies as native and not. Euphorbia amygdaloides is native to the United Kingdom and listed as such. For the subspecies, Euphorbia amygdaloides amygdaloides is native in the United Kingdom, Euphorbia amygdaloides robbiae isn’t, both have separate statuses. Even if you dug up every one of the natives and replaced it with the introduced subspecies, it’d still be an introduced subspecies.
Something that was extirpated in prehistory wouldn’t count as native. Rhododendron ponticum was probably here before the ice age, it’s been reintroduced since, and it’s one of our worst invasive species and you’d be looked at like you had two heads if you said it was native. It’s listed as introduced here because of that.
There is a big difference between humans moving a species and a species expanding its range, even if the end result looks the same to an observer who doesn’t know the history.
The turkeys released in California during the late 1800s and 20th Century be considered introduced, but in many of the areas Canada Geese are now found they moved there on their own, so they should not be considered introduced.
Similarly, Japanese marine species that washed up on the Oregon coast after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami arrived due to natural causes, not human ones, and as such they can be considered ‘non-native’ but not ‘introduced’.
They are descended from introduced populations but spread to new areas as a result of anthropogenic habitat change. Perhaps they would have spread there naturally either way if they hadn’t been extirpated from areas of their original range.
Cattle Egret, Brown-headed Cowbird, Blue-winged Warbler etc. spread in similar ways but there was no deliberate human action to cause that spread so no one considers them introduced in new areas.
But there’s a distinction here between “native” and “naturally occurring” and usually people make them synonyms to simplify things.
I have a bit of a personal unpopular opinions about the native/introduced status of birds - I think if a bird’s introduced range is continuous with its native range, you shouldn’t be able to call it introduced. It would have expanded there on its own regardless. I think the eBird maps for species like Wild Turkey and House Finch look pretty stupid trying to make those distinctions.
that reminds me of the common rhododendron situation in western europe. they were native there during the last ice age but as the weather got hotter they disappeared… but later the iberian subspecies that was still surviving was introduced to great britain as an ornamental shrub and became invasive in its ‘old home’ lol
