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Invasive species and natural function in ecology

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Abstract

If ecological systems are functionally organised, they can possess functions or malfunctions. Natural function would provide justification for conservationists to act for the protection of current ecological arrangements and control the presence of populations that create ecosystem malfunctions. Invasive species are often thought to be malfunctional for ecosystems, so functional arrangement would provide an objective reason for their control. Unfortunately for this prospect, I argue no theory of function, which can support such normative conclusions, can be applied to large scale ecosystems. Instead ecological systems have causal structure, with small clusters of populations achieving functional arrangement. This, however, does not leave us without reason to control invasive species. We can look at the causal arrangement of ecological systems for populations that support ecological features that we should preserve. Populations that play a causal role in reducing biodiversity should be controlled, because biodiversity is a good all prudent agents should want to preserve.

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Notes

  1. A fascinating new development is Millstein’s (forthcoming) thesis that populations have ecological selected effects functions even if communities do not undergo natural selection. Co-evolution provides an ecological function to an organism, it is selected to perform as a ‘parasite’ or ‘detritivore’ for only a few specific species, which provides the ‘ecological role’ it plays in the larger ecological system it belongs to. To my understanding, in this case Millstein is arguing that there is ‘selection for’ ecological functions without ‘selection of’ ecosystems. Such functional statements may be possible, but as of yet I cannot see how to connect these co-evolutionary roles with the larger ecological community they sit within; especially when these populations are taken outside of their historic ranges. I look forward to further developments of this idea.

  2. This point is up for debate, it depends on what is accepted as the reproduction of a set of lineages. Different theories of reproduction are more or less stringent (See Griesemer 2005; Godfrey-Smith 2009).

  3. Differential retention I find more plausible than propensity to persist, but I do not have the space to expand on why, so I will consider these accounts together.

  4. We would further need to identify whether the salt makes an actual causal difference, or whether it is some other causal factor, like rainfall or the addition of a population of wedgetail eagles. This is a serious epistemic barrier.

  5. http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedSpeciesApp/VegFormation.aspx?formationName=Dry+sclerophyll+forests+(shrub%2Fgrass+sub-formation) Accessed 14.08.2019.

  6. One option is we could indulge in some serious metaphysics and attempt to look at the ecosystem’s counterpart in the nearest possible world without that trait (Lewis 1971). I doubt the proponent of this version of naturalised function will find this desirable. Even if they do, there are issues with using such possible world semantics for identity (Mackie and Jago 2017).

  7. Thanks to Kim Sterelny for pressing this point.

  8. Recently, C2 was reformulated by the main proponents of Organisational functions (Moreno and Mossio 2015). I am, however, responding to the version of Organisational functions found within Nunes-Neto et al. (2014). Thanks to a reviewer for drawing my attention to this.

  9. For more arguments against water cycles being teleological see: Mossio and Bich 2017, p. 1100.

  10. Australian Government Invasive Species Fact Sheet https://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/invasive-species/publications/factsheet-feral-goat-capra-hircus Accessed 14.08.2019.

  11. Thanks to David Frank for this point.

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Acknowledgements

First I would like to thank my reviewers for the helpful feedback. The following people, and collectives, provided feedback or reviewed the paper: ANU Philsoc, Carl Brusse, Mark Colyvan, David Frank, Justin Garson, Paul Griffiths and his lab group, Ste Mann, University of Otago Philosophy Department, Kim Sterelny, and probably more. The views expressed in this paper do not reflect on theirs. Work on this paper was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (Grant Number DP170104924).

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    Christopher Hunter Lean

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Lean, C.H. Invasive species and natural function in ecology. Synthese 198, 9315–9333 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02635-x

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