this is great and matches my thoughts too
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Great! Iâve had to explain it in text so many times, and itâs never straightforward. So hopefully this helps some folks.
Itâs about as unbiased as possible. Personally, I find the distinction between âwildâ and ânaturalizedâ is pretty marginal. It just refers to whether the species naturally occurs at the given location or not. Even native species might become naturalized in another part of the state or county that they arenât originally from.
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Itâs also really hard to use, thereâre tons of plants that traveled with humans around Europe (and knowing how even a thousand years ago one person could walk through multiple countries in a couple of years), so you really can have little idea if they originated where theyâre found now, withut studying it, and many sp. called native to the region on iNat are actually not that native, but then thereâs a question of how many years ago is enough to be called natural expansion.
It doesnât really distinguish on whether the species you are trying to classify is native or not. Only the recent provenance. If you have any examples that still seem confusing or hard to classify, let me know.
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Well, I have little idea about naturalized term overall, other than what people wrote here, which is controversial at times, if itâs only about recent ânewcomersâ, then it kinda simplifies it, but really, if it is here for 300 years only, isnât it naturalized too?
Well, naturalized implies that a species was not known before a clear point of human-aided introduction. And yes, some species have been around for hundreds of years, from an original introduction. But if that introduction is known, regardless of how long ago it was, that species is not native. Itâs still considered naturalized.
The catch? If a species was not recorded to be introduced, thereâs really nothing you can do but give it benefit of the doubt that it is native. So the term isnât infallible, it just represents what we know about species ânativityâ, rather than what we donât know. Sometimes though genetics can tell the origin, based on where the most related species are normally found. There are other ways, too. But not always!
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That kinda proves what I feel about it, you need knowledge about whole species to imply that status for your iNat observation, and can not know some facts about it, so itâs not something all regular users would have been able to use as itâs much harder than what we have now.
Thatâs exactly what it is. But if you donât know, thereâs usually ample ways to find out by researching the species. Local guides, internet, and so on. Itâs never been a straight-forward concept, really. But worst case thereâs people you can ask for second opinions, so itâs not a problem if you mark something incorrectly as native.
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Out of curiosity, what about plants used for restoration - for example, a meadow that has been seeded in a nature preserve/protected area for the purposes of restoring that site to either a historic state or other wildlife goal, using plants that are technically native to the region but are either rare or have no nearby known populations? Such as how many sites now are restored for pollinators using species like Heliopsis helianthoides, Monarda fistulosa, Ratibida pinnata, etc, which are technically native to New York (for example, where I am) but are rarely encountered in the wild here. These meadows persist and become self-sustaining with generations of the original transplants/seeds, with the management goal of making a âwildâ meadow as wildlife habitat. Will this entire habitat never be wild? Unless one is aware of those management activities and the status of the species involved, casual observers arenât likely to know that the large meadows all around them arenât wild. Whenever I go to a nature preserve and see one of these plants growing seemingly in the wild, even just a couple individuals, I always have serious doubts that itâs there from a âwildâ or original, never-planted population. What about if the meadows were seeded with species that are more common in local habitats, with locally collected seeds, in some ways facilitating dispersal?
I am just curious about this, as much of my own fieldwork takes place in these sorts of restoration sites, particularly restored wetlands on state and federal lands that are managed with the intent of mimicking natural species assemblages and conditions present prior to human disturbance, or to enhance them for wildlife food production using native species in specific proportions (which may or may not have ever been planted), with the long-term goal being restoring self-sufficient functionality that no longer requires human management to persist. In many cases here, if the plants were not managed or cared for, the âwildâ that would come in would be invasive plants, thus reaching a wild state in the present day would include allowing exotics to populate alongside the natives, which undermines conservation goals, which can include establishing new populations of keystone or rare species as a source of seeds, genetic diversity, etc, for true wild populations.
I do grapple with all of this! What difficulties arise in assigning conservation status, or even determining ranges, of plants when it may no longer be easy to tell where a plant âoriginallyâ grew in a region, with so many populations originating, at some point, from planted individuals?
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if they self-sustain they have become wild but, on the other hand, they should not be considered native in a strict sense, especially if these plantations are made starting with accessions that are not from the same area.
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If we talk about current state of iNat all seeded and planted ones are not wild, but all the new ones are wild, if youâre not sure about it I doubt thereâs a big problem in leaving them as wild. Itâs not any different than any other replanted area in the world, just harder to find out what was planted and what wasnât if restoration was well done. If invasives are exterminated, the whole area is managed, but not individual plants, so that alone doesnât make them captive.
Itâs a fascinating question. If a plant has not been documented to occur in a particular county, but it has been documented in a county, say, to the west, and then someone seeds a field in which that plant becomes established as a reproducing population, does that become a new county record and range extension. Iâd have to say, yes! There are many historical instances of this sort of thing and we see those newer locations as part of the current distribution of the plant in published range maps. Often times, itâs not documented that such plantings took place so itâs impossible to tell if the range extension is human-mediated or not.
Yes there are always going to be unknowns. Many plants are changing their ranges naturally, so a new county record could be the result of natural spread. Though many of the changes are attributed to climate change so some would argue they are not natural.
On the other hand, seed mixes will contain contaminants not on the contents list, so a species that turns up unexpectedly in a restored site could be an unintended introduction.
Re old hay meadows, farmers have been reseeding for centuries, so what we value as an ancient meadow with its original flora could just be reflecting what was in the sack of seed bought in the 19th century.
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Just for fun: What if I have a rare native plant in my yard, and then I sell that property and move to the next county over where the species wasnât previously known (or was it?), but I inadvertently carried some seeds on my shoe, and it got established in my new yard one county away, but then I decided to move back to my old home, by which time the new owner had stripped the yard of all native vegetation, so I grab some seeds of the transplanted plants in that second home and bring them back and plant them in the first yard, but then we have a big winter freeze that wipes out the newly reseeded plants, but the species shows up the next spring from seeds in the ground of unknown origin. What are they considered? ;-)
Just kidding!!
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You say just kidding but thereâs definitive answers to all of those.
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Okay, letâs seeâŚ
Wild.
Wild.
Cultivated.
Wild.
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Wild Native vs Wild Naturalized absolutely matters in the ecological sense, but itâs not really relevant to iNat users.
Anyone working in ecology looking at the species mix will know or be able to reference which species are native vs naturalized in said areas, and if they run across a species thatâs not native theyâll know that itâs a non-native and needs to be investigated further.
The subject is complex and nuanced enough that it should be left to experts, not general iNat users.
The Native tag is far more useful over all with reference to iNat users.
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I am pretty bored by these statements that seem to express a point of view in the name of all iNat users.
NB: I am not blaming you in particular.
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well, it isnât something we should be asking all of the users to tag on observations, thatâs for sure.
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Itâs not a statement about a point of view for iNat users, itâs a statement about the fact that the average iNat user doesnât have the background to be making determinations like that.
There are certainly iNat users who do have the requisite backgrounds to do so, but expecting the average user to have that level of specific knowledge and to apply it properly is asking a lot.
An example, these are all terms that are commonly used, which ones are applicable to a given species? Which ones nest inside each other? Which ones are redundant? Which ones are legal terms vs biological terms?
- Native
- Introduced
- Wild
- Cultivated
- Exotic
- Non-native
- Alien
- Adventive species
- Naturalized
- Invasive
- Invasive native
- Endemic
- Noxious
- Prohibited
- Restricted
Itâs asking a lot of users to expect them to be up to date on the exact status of each species they encounter and what subset of terms it falls under.
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