The Sixth Extinction: Chapter 10

The theory of natural selection is that throughout time species will take evolve with their environment in order to survive and at times a species will gradually become extinct due to its inability to compete. The essence of this theory today is being tested as humans are introducing invasive species into different environments. When this happens, either two things happen to the species either it dies because of its inability to adapt or it adapts and survives in the environment. The introduction of invasive species is dangerous because the species often lacks competition, allowing it to grow rapidly affecting the other species. An instance of this were the Golden Frogs from chapter one, but another one was the discovery of dead bats in New York by a team of biologists. The death of the bats were because of invasive bacteria. Another instance of this was the brown tree snake that was introduced to Guam. The Snake lacked any competition and grew rapidly and after sometime the snake had led to the extinction of many of Guam's birds. The introduction of these species to different environment isn’t because of the lack of natural barriers instead its because of humans bringing along these species past the barriers. Kolbert and Al Hicks, one of the scientists that discovered the dead bats in New York, explored another cave in Vermont and noted that the vast majority of the bats had been killed by the bacteria as well. The breaking of the natural barriers that allow species to be exposed to different ecosystem is known as the concept of the “new pangea”. Charles Elton is a scientist who studied invasive species and attempted to find a solution to the dilemma. Elton concluded that if humans stopped the introduction of invasive species, then eventually the environment will stabilize naturally. At the end of the chapter, Kolbert returns to the cave in Vermont where she and a team notice that there are only 112 bats. With this, she concluded that the bacteria spread rapidly between bats to the point that the bats have become endangered. I wonder if there's a way to protect the bats from the bacteria and if there’s a faster way to stabilize ecosystems than waiting?

The overall idea of this chapter is that humans are altering natural systems because as they expose an ecosystem to an invasive species they are breaking the natural barriers. “According to the entry on pets in the Encyclopedia of Biological Invasions, every year more non-indigenous species..are brought into the U.S” (Kolber 211)  This goes to show the proximity of this issue as humans are importing species from different ecosystem into the country at a yearly basis.