Edgeland Excerpts: Is Native Purity a Viable Option?

Quoted from Dr. Colin Meurk: “But, what is “wild?” There is an appetite again for “rewinding” and using “cues for care” (Nassauer) in urban environments to make this acceptable. The niche envelopes can be as surely defined in these contrived ‘wild’ urban environments as in the real wild. With many environmental stress/disturbance combinations, native species will individually survive by chance at some points and places, in combination with some (weakened) exotic species, then reproduce and eventually find their ‘natural’ position in the gradients provided as self-sustaining populations. That may be the future of many lowland, open habitat herbs. Then invertebrates, birds and lizards will find these plants and establish their ‘natural’ interactions. Meta-populations of such plants may form on roofs, walls, pavements, rock gardens, lawns etc. These habitats can be seen as forming an archipelago in urban environments!"

Dr Colin Meurk is a senior ecologist at Landcare Research, New Zealand. Quotation from Global Roundtable Green Form and Function versus Green Nativism at the Nature of Cities.com (http://www.thenatureofcities.com/2015/11/05/green-form-function-versus-green-nativism-in-changing-urban-spaces-full-of-novel-ecosystems-and-natural-assemblages-is-native-purity-a-viable-option/)