science – Conservation Sense and Nonsense

Life on Earth has saved itself many times without help from humans. It must do so again.

“What exists now can only ever come from what came before.” –Thomas Halliday, Otherlands

The consequences of climate change were more severe this summer than ever before:

Many places around the globe experienced extreme and prolonged heat waves.
Extreme heat caused wildfires in many places around the world.
There were also many severe floods all over the world.
The collapse of a glacier and the bedrock under it killed thousands of people in Nepal and warned of similar cataclysmic events elsewhere in the future.
NOAA is predicting the strongest El Niño on record in 2026-2027. It is expected to cause heavy rain in some places (such as California) and extreme droughts in other places around the world.

America is unwilling to do anything to reduce greenhouse gases causing climate change. In fact, we are developing more sources of fossil fuels and preventing the development of renewable sources of energy that do not contribute to greenhouse gases causing climate change.

Today, I would like to put these radical changes in our planet into some perspective, by revisiting some of the many catastrophic changes on Earth in the 4.6 billion years of its existence. In the 3.7 billion years that life has existed on Earth, 98% of all living species have become extinct. The species that survived those events were best adapted to the changed environment and many more evolved as conditions allowed. There are more species of plants and animals now than ever before, but many are threatened by climate change.

Homo sapiens have lived on Earth for only about 300,000 years. Clearly, humans have had little to do with the appearance of new species or the disappearance of extinct species over 3.7 million years until humans initiated the current round of climate change by burning fossil fuels to power our economy.

We must look to nature to save itself. Humans are not capable of doing so. In fact, we are standing in the way. Today, I am republishing an article that explains how nature has survived for billions of years without the “help” of humans and will do so again if we let it.

Conservation Sense and Nonsense

Let Evolution Lead the Way to Adaptation and Survival of Life

Otherlands, A Journey Through Earth’s Extinct Worlds was written by a paleontologist using the latest scientific techniques available. (1) Paleontology has advanced far beyond digging up fossils. Computer and DNA analysis enables paleontologists to reconstruct models of whole animals from bone fragments as well as describe the lifestyle of extinct animals such as what they ate and what ate them.

Geologic periods described by *Otherlands*. Source: Wikipedia

Thomas Halliday puts this knowledge of some of the 5 billion species that have gone extinct in the 4.6 billion years that Earth has existed into the context of geological and biological changes that caused their extinction. He describes vivid scenes of specific places at specific times, starting 500 million years ago (mya), a geological period when we can recognize most of the phyla (major groups of animals sharing characteristics) that exist today. These snapshots of deep time illustrate that “Environments shape their inhabitants as much as their inhabitants shape them.” (1)

In this article, we will visit a few of these scenes that demonstrate the biological innovations resulting from evolution and the associated geological and atmospheric events. And we will tell you about how modern conservation methods are often working at cross purposes against evolution and adaptation of life as it copes with catastrophic challenges.

Biological Innovation

Primitive life is said to have existed on Earth 3.7 billion years ago (bya). All life that presently exists on Earth is said to have evolved from the first life forms, although the common ancestor is yet to be identified. No life on Earth is truly alien.

The diversification of life on Earth began to accelerate when cyanobacteria developed the ability to photosynthesize about 3 bya. Photosynthesis converts sunlight to energy by consuming carbon dioxide, creating carbohydrates that feed plants and storing carbon in plants and the soil, while emitting oxygen into the atmosphere as a by-product.

This evolutionary innovation is responsible for the abundance and diversity of plants today. It is an important factor in the balance of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the atmosphere, which is one of the most important factors in the Earth’s climate. More plants also mean more food for animals that evolve alongside plants, often forming relationships with one another.

The first mass extinction, roughly 445 million years ago (mya), is the only mass extinction caused by a rapid change in the Earth’s climate from tropical to glacial, which is equivalent to saying the atmosphere changed from predominantly carbon dioxide to predominantly oxygen, the opposite of our currently changing atmosphere and climate.

Carbon dioxide levels are said to have dropped from 7,000 parts per million (ppm) to 4,400 ppm during the Ordovician extinction event that killed about 85% of plant and animal species. Currently our carbon dioxide level is about 420 ppm, just a fraction of what it was during the Ordovician period. In the context of the history of Earth, the climate we are experiencing is mild, a reminder of the potential for a much more extreme climate in the near future.

This graph of global mean surface temperature on Earth in the past 485 million years tells us the Earth’s climate has been mild since humans evolved. The graph should help us understand the potential for the Earth’s climate to increase beyond the tolerance for human life.

Comparing contemporary sea levels with those in deep time is another way to appreciate the potential for devastating changes in the future. 20,000 years ago, at the height of the last ice age, sea levels were 120 meters lower than they are now. Conversely, sea levels were highest during the mid-Silurian period, 430 mya, when sea levels were between 100-200 meters higher than they are now and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were high.

Although the causes of the drastic change in the atmosphere and therefore the climate during the Ordovician period are still debated, the advent of photosynthesis is considered a factor. The development of fungi enabled plants to move from water to land by delivering moisture from soil to roots of plants, greatly increasing abundance and diversity of plants. About 80% of plants today receive much of their nutrients and moisture through mycorrhizal fungi.

The photosynthesizing capabilities of plants is one of the ways greenhouse gas emissions, currently causing global warming, can be reduced. Yet, we are using pesticides to kill plants that native plant advocates have arbitrarily decided “don’t belong.” Pesticides also kill fungi in the soil that enable plants to survive during drought conditions created by global warming. This is one of many examples of how management strategies used by humans are counteracting the accomplishments of evolution that occurred long before humans existed or began to think they were competent to “manage” nature.

Plant Evolution Timeline

To make a long, complicated story short, we’ll focus on the major plant groups we recognize today by starting with seedless land plants that reproduce by dispersing spores, such as mosses and ferns that evolved from algae about 460 mya.

Gymnosperms, which we recognize today as conifers, cycads, and Gingkos, are seed-producing plants that evolved about 300 mya. Early species of gymnosperms formed huge forests. The carbon they stored became the coal fields of today when they died during the Carboniferous period (360-300 mya). Today, we draw our fossil fuels from these coal and oil basins. They provide most of our energy, while releasing greenhouse gases causing climate change.

Continents were close together during the Cretaceous geologic period when angiosperms evolved. Source: Australian Museum

Angiosperms evolved from gymnosperms about 130 mya. They are flowering plants whose seeds are often encased in fruit. They are by far the most diverse group of land plants. The evolution of bees around the same time is an example of co-evolution: the flowers feed the bees and the bees pollinate the flowers, delivering pollen from the male anther to the female stigma. This sexual method of reproduction creates greater genetic diversity than self-pollination. Greater genetic diversity creates more opportunities for natural selection to operate on plant variations, which may result in species that are better adapted to existing conditions.

A recent study (2) found that the decline in the population of bees has increased the frequency of self-pollination of some plant species that are capable of both methods of pollination. This is an example of evolution at work today. Plants are responding to the existential need to reproduce in the absence of bees by self-pollinating.

What evolution has accomplished in the past can be undone. In this case, our indiscriminate use of pesticides such as neonicotinoids has decimated bee populations. Some plants will adapt to the loss of bees by self-pollinating, but not without some loss of genetic diversity provided by sexual reproduction and consequently the long term fitness of plants to face challenges in the future.

There’s another trade-off for both plants and bees. Producing nectar and attracting bees with colorful flowers is a big energy expense for plants. Plants therefore save energy by reducing flower size and color, when they can rely solely on self-pollination for reproduction. Obviously, self-pollination ultimately results in a loss of food for bees and may accelerate the decline in bee populations, a negative feed-back loop, if you will.

This example is a reminder that evolution is neither positive nor negative. It is simultaneously both positive and negative. It is what it is: an inexorable force for change.

Evolution of grasses

Grasses and grasslands are late comers to the Earth’s plant kingdom. Grasses evolved from angiosperms about 70 mya, during the Age of Dinosaurs that abruptly ended 66 mya when an enormous asteroid collided with Earth. Grasses are wind pollinated and their seeds are dispersed by the wind, which enables them to spread rapidly and widely.

Grasslands became dominant ecosystems about 30 mya, replacing many forest ecosystems. With the optimal combination of fuel, heat, and oxygen, wildfires were a factor in the transition from forests to grasslands in many places. Once again, wildfires in conifer forests are presently playing a role in converting forests to grasslands, suitable to a warmer and drier climate.

The development of enhanced photosynthesis by C4 grasses gave them a competitive advantage in hot, dry places where photosynthesis is suppressed. C4 grasses are more drought tolerant and they store more carbon than their predecessors, C3 grasses. There are only about 60 groups of C4 grasses, including several important food crops, such as maize, sugarcane, and sorghum. They are found in tropical and sub-tropical regions of Africa and South America and some deserts. California’s native grasses as well as introduced grasses considered “invasive” are not C4 grasses, according to a list of C4 grasses available on Wikipedia. (3)

Because of their potential to improve drought tolerance and increase productivity and carbon storage, there is great scientific interest in converting C3 grasses to C4 grasses. Despite decades of effort, agricultural science has not been able to duplicate what the natural forces of evolution have accomplished, reminding us that evolution is more powerful than we are.

The transition from forests to grasslands had a corresponding impact on the evolution of animals. Some browsers of woody plants learned to be grazers, if they could, while others went hungry, and the diversity and abundance of grazers increased.

Native plant advocates in California have selected grassland as their preferred ecosystem because it was the dominant ecosystem prior to the arrival of Europeans at the end of the 18th century. They have consistently failed to convert non-native grassland to native grassland in California. Nor is it clear that there would be any benefit to the environment or to its inhabitants to return to the treeless landscapes of California that existed prior to settlement in the late 18^th century.

Where populations of native grazers of grassland were reduced by the activities of humans, many grasslands in California naturally succeeded to shrubs and trees. “Restoration” projects attempt to prevent succession of grasslands. Some of these projects destroy native trees and shrubs (e.g. Douglas fir, coyote brush, juniper, etc.) mechanically and with pesticides to maintain ecosystems as grassland.

Nativists also want to reintroduce the grazing animals of the pre-colonial period to replace domesticated animals humans introduced because nativists see them as competitors of native animals they consider superior. Where top predators have been killed, these herds of grazing animals outgrow available vegetation unless their numbers are controlled as domesticated animals are.

A recent meta-analysis of 221 studies of the impact of megafauna on plant abundance found, “no evidence that megafauna impacts were shaped by nativeness, “invasiveness,” “feralness,” coevolutionary history, or functional and phylogenetic novelty. Nor was there evidence that introduced megafauna facilitate introduced plants more than native megafauna. Instead, we found strong evidence that functional traits shaped megafauna impacts, with larger-bodied and bulk-feeding megafauna promoting plant diversity. Our work suggests that trait-based ecology provides better insight into interactions between megafauna and plants than do concepts of nativeness.” (4)

The author of Otherlands agrees that the concept of nativeness is not a useful way to understand the environment or conduct conservation because: “Where an animal or a plant from one part of the world appears in another, some might use the language of invasion, of a native ecosystem despoiled and rendered lesser by newcomers…In reality, species do move, and the notion of ‘native’ species is inevitably arbitrary, often tied to national identity…There is no such thing as a fixed ideal for an environment…To look into deep time is to see only an ever-changing list of inhabitants of one ecosystem or another…The concept of native that we so easily tie to a sense of place also applies to time…We must avoid putting our own ahistorical spin on what was, although certainly dangerous and unlikely, a journey guided entirely by chance.” (1)

Migration

The history of evolution is also a history of migration. The oscillation of the Earth’s climate between freezing cold and blistering heat created and destroyed land bridges that enabled or blocked migration as sea levels rose and fell. When North America and South America were connected by Central America as a result of lower sea levels and geological events about 3 mya, the plants and animals of those continents were mixed by migration. Likewise, aquatic life of the Pacific Ocean was separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Central American land bridge until the Panama Canal was built in 1914.

Geological events also created or destroyed the same opportunities for migration. The opening and closing of the Strait of Gibraltar is a case in point. The Mediterranean Sea exists because the Strait of Gibraltar exists. When the narrow Strait is open, the Atlantic Ocean flows into the Mediterranean Basin, creating the Mediterranean Sea, which is an obstacle for migration of plants and animals between Europe and Africa.

About 6 mya the Strait of Gibraltar closed because the African tectonic plate moved north, colliding with the European tectonic plate. The Mediterranean Sea slowly evaporated, concentrating ocean salt from the Atlantic Ocean, laying down a sea bed of salt in the Mediterranean Basin and ultimately creating a migration corridor between Africa and Europe. There is every reason to believe that the Strait could close again. The Earth’s tectonic plates are in constant motion and there is no reason to believe they will stop moving.

The obsession with “where plants belong” seems to be based on ignorance of the history of dispersal and migration. Much of China and North America have been in the same latitude since the evolution of angiosperms. As a result, many of our plant species considered native in Eastern North America are also considered native in China. These paired species in the same genus are called disjuncts. There are many woody disjuncts in China and North America (magnolias, persimmons, hickory, catalpa, dogwood, sweetgum, tuliptree, tupelo, sassafras, Virginia creeper, etc) as well as many herbaceous disjuncts (ginseng, lopseed, mayapple, skunk cabbage, etc.). (5) They are different species because they have been separated long enough to change as a result of genetic drift, but are in the same plant lineage, therefore chemically similar and presumably used by the same insects. The study of these disjuncts says, “Most scientists do not consider long-distance dispersal to have played much of a role. The prevailing view is that most disjuncts are remnants of genera that were once widely distributed in the northern temperate zone during the Tertiary period [66 mya to 2.6 mya per Wikipedia]. These broad distributions in the northern hemisphere were made possible by recurring land bridges.” (5)

Lateral migration patterns of the past are changing in response to contemporary patterns of climate change. The temperatures at different latitudes are becoming more similar because Polar Regions are warming at a much faster pace than temperate and tropical latitudes. Plants and animals escaping extreme heat and associated changes in vegetation are moving to higher latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere and lower latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere. The increasing similarity of the Earth’s climate is changing wind and ocean currents and contributing to the extreme weather events of our changing climate. Although there are lessons in the events of deep time, we cannot assume that events in the past are entirely predictive of future events because of the complexity of natural processes and our limited understanding of them.

Of all the nonsensical conservation strategies humans are presently using, perhaps one of the most damaging is the futile attempt to stop migration. It is one of few survival strategies of plants and animals needed in a rapidly changing climate and it cannot be stopped.

The project that proposes to shoot barred owls in the Pacific Northwest is an example of a “conservation” project that does not deserve that honorific. Barred owls have migrated from the East to the West Coasts of North America via the boreal forests of Canada. This is another instance in which large contiguous stretches of land at the same latitude facilitate the migration of life because there is less variation in climate at the same latitude.

Specialists vs. Generalists

Barred owls are more adaptable than their closely related relative in the same genus, spotted owls. Barred owls have a more varied diet, they are willing to nest in less dense, second-growth forest, and they have greater reproductive success. They are therefore perceived as competitors of endangered spotted owls. Instead of letting natural selection identify the winner of that competition, the US Fish & Wildlife Service intends to shoot 500,000 barred owls in the next 30 years based on their belief that spotted owls will benefit. They do not expect to eradicate barred owls and they made a commitment to continue shooting barred owls in perpetuity. While we continue to log old-growth forests in which spotted owls live, we will kill barred owls with no expectation that they can be eradicated.

This project is typical of American “conservation” projects that attempt to save a specialist species by killing a generalist species. This strategy was enshrined in American law by the Endangered Species Act, which is now 50 years old. Like many 50-year-old public policies, we now know that this conservation strategy is not working because it is inconsistent with evolutionary principles. Change in nature is inexorable. Legal mandates are not capable of stopping evolution. If we had a functional political system, we could stop the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change, but we don’t. Therefore, we must rely on evolution to cope with the changes in the environment that we have caused.

The most recent mass extinction occurred 66 mya when an asteroid hit the Earth, ending the Age of Dinosaurs. About 80% of all plant and animal species became extinct. The species that survived were the most versatile and the most mobile. Flying dinosaurs were the only dinosaurs that survived, as birds, perhaps because they were the most mobile. “Of the specialized insects, 85% were lost and it was the generalists that survived.” (1)

Mass extinctions have created many vacant ecological niches that are opportunities for experimentation, creating new species. Some were better adapted than others. Natural selection determined the winners of competition within ecological niches. The end of the Age of Dinosaurs created the opportunity for the Age of Mammals, as well as bony fish, marsupials, and lizards.

In other words, our outdated conservation strategy is wasting our limited resources to save specialized species that are probably doomed to extinction. And we are doing so at the expense of generalist species that might survive if we would quit killing them. Keep in mind that 99% of all life forms that have existed on Earth have gone extinct. At a time when the climate is changing rapidly, the goal of saving every endangered species seems both unrealistic and wasteful of limited conservation resources.

Hybridization

Hybridization is one of the tools of evolution. Closely related species, usually in the same genus and even family often mate and their offspring often survive to eventually give rise to new species. Successful hybridization is a means of increasing biodiversity. Hybridization is sometimes a means of improving adaptability and therefore survival.

Unfortunately, nativists see hybridization as a loss of biodiversity rather than an opportunity to improve adaptability and increase biodiversity. Their “conservation” projects often attempt to prevent hybridization by killing hybrids. For example, the plan to kill 500,000 barred owls includes all hybrids of barred and spotted owls. Because barred owls are more versatile, hybridization with spotted owls could even the playing field with barred owls by expanding food sources and nesting habitats of spotted owls.

The Spartina eradication project is another example of the pointless eradication of hybrids. In the case of Spartina, the non-native species grows more densely and it doesn’t die back in winter. Non-native Spartina provides better storm protection and better habitat for nesting birds. The Invasive Spartina Project has been spraying hybrid Spartina with herbicides for over 20 years, without total success. The hybrid looks so similar to native Spartina that 600 genetic tests are required every year to confirm their identification as hybrids before they are sprayed. The Invasive Spartina Project is a waste of limited conservation resources and it serves no useful purpose.

Evolution vs. Conservation

Otherlands should be required reading for those who are engaged in the “restoration” industry. Some of the methods and goals of conservation are at odds with the mechanisms of evolution that have ensured the survival of life on Earth for nearly 4 billion years.

The use of pesticides by “restoration” projects is antithetical to the goal of conservation because they do more harm than good.
Migration is a means of species survival. Natural migration of plants and animals cannot and should not be stopped.
Humans cannot duplicate the forces of evolution. Natural selection is the most powerful, efficient, and effective method of determining the winners of competition.
Hybridization has the potential to improve adaptability of closely related plants and animals. Hybridization cannot and should not be stopped.
Resources being wasted in the attempt to stop the natural forces of evolution should be redirected to reducing greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change. Such efforts are appropriately called “conservation.”

Thomas Halliday, Otherlands, A Journey Through Earth’s Extinct Worlds, Random House, 2023
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/science/flower-sex-evolution-bees.html?searchResultPosition=1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_C4_plants
Erik Lundgren et.al., “Functional traits—not nativeness-shape the effects of large mammalian herbivores on plant communities,” Science, February 2, 2024
David Yih, “Land Bridge Travels of the Tertiary: The Eastern Asian-Eastern North American Floristic Disjunction, Arnoldia, 2012

Originally published March 1, 2024

“Ecosystems persist because they are capable of transformation, not because they resist.”

Please join me in welcoming Megan Bonnett to the team of contrarians who don’t believe that native plants are the salvation of nature. Nature will be its own savior, if we let it. With Megan’s permission, we publish one of the articles on her Substack, “Here and There.” Megan takes us, step-by-step through the processes of evolution that enable life on Earth to survive the radical changes that Earth has endured for 3.5 billion years without the “assistance” or interference of humans.

Megan Bonnett is a naturalist, independent ecology researcher, and science communicator whose work explores ecological theory, the history of invasion biology, and the philosophical assumptions that shape modern conservation.

She grew up in central Texas in a family of nature lovers, where countless hours spent outdoors cultivated both a deep affection for the living world and an insatiable curiosity about how it works. She later studied wildlife biology at Texas State University and spent more than a decade working as a naturalist and outdoor educator for organizations throughout the Austin area.

Long before ecology became the focus of her research, Megan developed what she can only describe as a calling to investigate incongruities–to follow the places where accepted narratives and observable reality don’t quite align. Through many challenging experiences in her young life and a propensity for deep observation of the goings-on around her, she became acutely aware of the gap that can exist between what people profess and what they practice. Rather than extinguishing that instinct by outsourcing her intellectual autonomy to the people who professed and practiced different things, she embarked on a path in the sciences and simply redirected it. The same habit of carefully examining assumptions, asking uncomfortable questions, and comparing ideas with evidence became the foundation of her work as a naturalist and researcher.

After another decade as an independent outdoor educator and guide, that curiosity led her to ask why so many aspects of invasion biology seemed internally inconsistent. What began as a handful of questions grew into a years-long investigation of ecological research, the history of the discipline, and the philosophical frameworks that have shaped modern conservation. When the COVID lock downs began and she could no longer teach in the field, she began to communicate her findings by various other means, turning her in-person outdoor education into online science communication.

Today, her work seeks not only to better understand ecological systems, but also to examine the assumptions that guide how humans interpret and manage them. She believes that every scientific discipline benefits from thoughtful self-examination, and that questioning long-held ideas is an essential part of scientific progress. Her writing explores where evidence, philosophy, history, and ecology intersect, inviting readers to look beyond familiar narratives and reconsider the questions themselves.

Conservation Sense and Nonsense

Post-Anthropocentric Ecology

Abstract

Conservation biology has long framed non-native species as symptoms of ecological degradation, positioning extinction, migration, and novel species assemblages as failures requiring correction. This paper advances a post-anthropocentric ecological framework that challenges these assumptions by re-centering ecosystems as self-organizing, adaptive systems operating across deep evolutionary time. Drawing on disturbance ecology, niche construction theory, and emerging work on novel ecosystems, it argues that migration and species replacement are not pathologies but core mechanisms through which ecosystems heal, reorganize, and persist under changing constraints. Extinction, while affectively charged for humans, is reframed as a natural–often necessary–component of systemic adaptation rather than an intrinsic ecological wrong. By interrogating the moral, temporal, and ontological assumptions embedded in invasive species discourse, this critique proposes a shift from origin-based conservation toward functional, process-oriented stewardship grounded in humility, restraint, and trust in the adaptive intelligence of living systems.

Introduction: The Limits of Anthropocentric Conservation

Modern conservation biology presents itself as a science of protection, yet its foundational assumptions remain deeply anthropocentric. Despite rejecting overt human dominance over nature, conservation practice continues to privilege human temporal scales, moral intuitions, and historical preferences when defining ecological harm. Ecosystems are treated as if they possess an optimal past state to which they ought to be returned, and deviation from this state–particularly through the arrival of non-native species–is framed as ecological error.

Nowhere is this framing more pronounced than in “invasive” species discourse. Migrant species are routinely characterized as threats, symptoms of degradation, or agents of collapse, with management efforts focused on eradication and control. Yet this perspective sits uneasily with what ecology itself reveals: that ecosystems are non-equilibrial, historically contingent, and fundamentally shaped by disturbance, dispersal, and replacement (Pickett & White 1985; Wu & Loucks 1995).

This paper argues that the invasive species paradigm reflects not ecological necessity but a residual anthropocentrism- an insistence that ecosystems conform to human concepts of order, identity, and permanence. A post-anthropocentric ecology, by contrast, would evaluate ecological change in terms of process, function, and adaptive emergence across deep time, rather than fidelity to culturally salient baselines.

Ecosystems as Self-Organizing Processes

Ecological systems are not archives of species composition but dynamic processes involving flows of energy, nutrients, organisms, and information. The persistence of ecosystems arises not from stasis but from continuous reorganization under changing conditions. Disturbance is not an interruption of ecological order but one of its primary drivers (Holling 1973).

The historical baseline model of conservation presumes that a particular moment in ecological history–often coinciding with early modern human observation–represents a normative state. Yet paleobiology and disturbance ecology reveal no such equilibrium. Species assemblages have always been provisional, repeatedly dismantled and reassembled through climatic shifts, geological events, and biotic interactions (Benton 2009).

From this perspective, ecological change is not a deviation to be corrected but an expression of systemic responsiveness. Ecosystems persist because they are capable of transformation, not because they resist it.

Migration as an Adaptive Response, Not a Pathology

Species dispersal has been the primary mechanism by which life responds to environmental change throughout Earth’s history. Ice ages, continental drift, mass extinctions, and atmospheric transformations all produced waves of migration and novel assemblages, none of which were constrained by notions of nativeness or historical fidelity.

Contemporary migration is often treated as uniquely pathological because it occurs within human-altered landscapes. Yet this framing introduces a qualitative distinction unsupported by ecological theory. While human activity accelerates change, ecosystems respond to altered constraints in the same way they always have–through redistribution, replacement, and innovation.

The emerging literature on novel ecosystems acknowledges this reality, recognizing that many contemporary ecosystems have crossed thresholds beyond which historical restoration is neither possible nor ecologically meaningful (Hobbs et al. 2006; Hobbs et al. 2013). In such contexts, migrant species often function not as disruptors but as pioneers and engineers facilitating system-level reorganization.

Case Studies in Functional Emergence

Nitrogen-Fixing Trees in Degraded Tropical Landscapes

In post-agricultural and post-mining tropical soils, native forest species frequently fail to re-establish due to severe nutrient depletion. Non-native nitrogen-fixing trees such as Leucaena, Acacia, and Albizia often colonize these landscapes rapidly, restoring nitrogen availability, increasing soil carbon, and facilitating successional processes that would otherwise stall.

Studies in Puerto Rico demonstrate that such species do not necessarily suppress biodiversity long-term, but instead enable the emergence of stable, productive forest systems that differ compositionally from historical baselines yet function ecologically (Lugo 2004). Here, migrant species act as metabolic catalysts, repairing biogeochemical cycles rather than displacing intact systems.

Ariel Lugo overlooking an urban watershed in Puerto Rico. Photo courtesy of Ariel Lugo.

Tamarisk and Riparian Reorganization in the American Southwest

Tamarisk (Tamarix spp.) has long been framed as an invasive villain in the Southwestern United States. However, research reveals that its dominance coincides with dam-altered hydrology that prevents the regeneration of native cottonwoods and willows. In the absence of natural flood pulses, the historical riparian system is no longer viable.

Tamarisk defoliated by intentionally introduced tamarisk leaf beetle along Colorado River, near Needles, California. Source: https://www.al-ipc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Norelli.pdf

Climate-Driven Mangrove Expansion

Poleward mangrove expansion into salt marsh ecosystems is frequently described as biological invasion. Yet this process reflects climate-driven adaptation rather than ecological breakdown. Mangroves increase coastal carbon sequestration, enhance shoreline stability, and replace marsh functions under warming conditions (Saintilan et al. 2014).

In this context, nativeness dissolves as a meaningful category. What persists is function- coastal protection, productivity, and resilience- carried forward by different species under new constraints.

Mangrove Forest from Above. An aerial view of the dense mangrove forest on Nusa Lembongan, Indonesia. © Joel Vodell

Extinction, Replacement, and the Myth of Ecological Wrongness

Extinction occupies a privileged moral position in conservation discourse, treated as the ultimate ecological harm. Yet extinction is neither anomalous nor avoidable; it is a fundamental mechanism of evolutionary change (Raup 1991; Jablonski 2004). Species that fail to adapt do not disappear suddenly but undergo prolonged decline characterized by starvation, disease, and reproductive failure.

From a systems perspective, artificially sustaining such species through intensive management may delay adaptation while prolonging suffering. Extinction is tragic from a human emotional standpoint, but it is not intrinsically wrong nor necessarily maladaptive at the ecosystem level.

Importantly, extinction does not signify emptiness but transition. Ecosystems respond through functional replacement, niche reconfiguration, and the emergence of new associations–processes observed repeatedly throughout deep time.

Biodiversity, Simplification, and Temporal Bias

Conservation biology frequently equates ecosystem health with high species richness. Yet many naturally occurring ecosystems are characterized by low visible diversity or monodominance, particularly during early successional stages or under extreme conditions.

Migrant species often simplify ecosystems initially, acting as structural or metabolic scaffolding upon which complexity can later emerge. Short-term declines in species richness may therefore reflect transitional dynamics rather than endpoints. The privileging of immediate diversity metrics reveals a temporal bias aligned with human observation cycles rather than ecological reality.

As Davis et al. (2011) argue, judging species by origin rather than effect obscures functional contributions and reinforces static conceptions of nature.

Moral Projection and the Illusion of Ecological Control

As far as we can perceive, nature does not possess moral categories. Concepts such as harm, value, and responsibility arise within human cognition and culture. Conservation biology often obscures this fact by presenting value-laden decisions as scientific imperatives.

The prioritization of native species reflects cultural nostalgia, aesthetic preference, and a desire for control rather than ecological necessity (Chew & Hamilton 2011; Sagoff 2005). Moreover, eradication campaigns justified in the name of conservation frequently involve large-scale killing and system disruption, raising ethical contradictions even within human moral frameworks.

A post-anthropocentric ecology does not deny human values but refuses to universalize them. It calls for ethical humility: recognizing that ecosystems do not require our permission to change, nor our correction to persist.

Toward a Post-Anthropocentric Ecological Framework

A post-anthropocentric ecology rests on several principles:

Function over origin; ecological roles matter more than historical nativeness.
Processes over states; ecosystems are defined by flows, not snapshots.
Deep time over immediacy; adaptation unfolds across evolutionary scales.
Restraint over control; intervention should be exceptional, not reflexive.
Trust over mastery; ecosystems possess adaptive intelligence exceeding human prediction.

This framework does not reject conservation but reframes it as facilitation rather than correction.

This perspective does not argue against conservation action per se, nor does it suggest that all species introductions are benign from a human perspective. In closed or evolutionarily naïve systems, or where extinction risk is acute and replacement processes are deemed unlikely, intervention may, on occasion, be justified. However, in open, heavily altered systems where historical conditions no longer exist, reflexive opposition to migrant species may increase ecological harm. Conservation, in such contexts, must shift from enforcing historical fidelity to supporting functional resilience.

Conclusion: Letting Living Systems Lead

The persistence of life across billions of years testifies to its capacity for self-organization, adaptation, and repair. Migrant species are not ecological errors but expressions of this adaptive intelligence operating under novel constraints.

Post-anthropocentric ecology asks not how ecosystems can be made to resemble the past, but how they are already responding to the present. In an era of rapid planetary change, the most ethical and ecologically grounded response may not be to intervene more aggressively, but to listen more carefully–to learn when healing is already underway, even if it does not look like what we expected.

Megan Bonnett
megan.bonnett@gmail.com

Benton, Michael J. 2009. “The Red Queen and the Court Jester: Species Diversity and the Role of Biotic and Abiotic Factors Through Time.” *Science* 323 (5915): 728–732. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1157719.

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“Nature’s Best Hope” is Evolution, Not Native Plants

Six months ago, an ecologist friend and mentor alerted me that Ferris Jabr was writing an article about Doug Tallamy for The New York Times Magazine. They spoke by phone for about an hour, during which my friend recommended that Jabr also speak with me. I was hopeful that the Times would publish an even-handed assessment of Doug Tallamy’s nativist ideology. I’m a subscriber who trusts NYT to report fairly on controversial issues. I’m sorry to say that in this case, NYT let its readers down. (1)

In contrast to that brief phone interview, Jabr reports spending several days visiting Doug Tallamy at his home in Delaware, months before he spoke with dissenting voices. That disproportionate time shows in the resulting article, which lands firmly in Tallamy’s camp. Jabr also spoke by phone with several other academic ecologists whom I know, but quoted none of them.

Preparation

I began preparing for an interview I hoped to be granted by Ferris Jabr. I read his book, Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life, about how life and Earth coevolved. It examines the concept that our world is a single, interconnected, self-regulating living system, and argues that all living things are not just inhabitants, but active participants in the planet’s evolution.

Jabr’s life-long interest in gardening contributed to his understanding of the intertwined fates of life and Earth. He describes how he transformed the barren lawn of his new home into diverse wildlife habitat, with the help of contractors and tons of soil amendments, shown in before, transition, and after photos (see below). He says he and his partner planted native species and a vegetable garden, but he also mentions planting traditional ornamentals such as peonies and dahlias.

Ferris Jabr’s garden. Source: *Becomiing Earth*

The book demonstrates a solid grasp of evolution and events in deep time that illustrate how life changes as the environment changes. I was hopeful that knowledge would enable him to write a balanced article about Tallamy’s nativist ideology in which evolution plays no role. The public’s poor understanding of evolution is the main obstacle to grasping a simple truth: when the climate changes, vegetation must move, adapt, or die.

Plants that lived in pre-European America 500 years ago are unlikely to be the best adapted to our changed and changing climate. I encourage home gardeners to plant whatever they want, but be prepared to watch plants die if you insist on exclusively species native to your region. I wince when Tallamy rails against hybrid plants, which he insists must be eradicated. Hybridization is one of the most powerful evolutionary tools that enables life to adapt to environmental change.

Over 20 years ago the governors of California, Oregon, and Washington made a commitment to eradicate non-native spartina marsh grass on the entire West Coast. Intensive aerial spraying of herbicide killed more than 95% of non-native spartina over 10 years ago, but the project continues in the San Francisco Bay. The project killed 600 endangered Ridgway rails, because non-native spartina was denser and did not die back in winter. The goal is now the eradication of hybrid spartina that grows at the same marsh elevations as native spartina and is so visually similar that it requires 500 genetic tests every year to determine that it is a hybrid before it is sprayed with herbicide. Funding for the project was recently renewed. Source: https://milliontrees.me/2021/10/15/spartina-eradication-is-now-a-zombie-project/

I watched a video of Jabr presenting his book at Yale Law School. When he gave the same talk at a Bioneers Conference at UC Berkeley in March, I asked to speak with him there. It became clear he wouldn’t speak with me. He implied I lacked the required “credentials.” I changed tactics.

Bringing the Mountain to Mohammed

I asked a collaborator with unimpeachable credentials — a horticultural professional and university instructor — to reach out to Jabr. She did, but he did not interview her.

I also recruited an academic botanist to write a guest post for my website about data manipulation he’d found in one of Tallamy’s studies, manipulation that effectively hid the many contributions non-native plants make to lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). Nathan Lambstrom is a busy university lecturer and designer of ecological gardens, but he wrote the piece, published here. Jabr interviewed Lambstrom after that article ran, but didn’t quote him, nor did he mention the data manipulation underlying Tallamy’s ideology in his article.

Where Does Jabr Land?

Jabr’s article centers on Tallamy’s thirty-year transformation of his 10-acre Pennsylvania farm into a native garden. To his credit, Jabr offers some mild qualifiers to Tallamy’s version of nativism:

Despite applying herbicides, Tallamy was unable to eliminate all introduced species: multiflora rose still forms a few thickets, and Japanese stiltgrass carpets the forest floor. As a witness to such attempts to eradicate non-native plants on public land, I can confirm that they are rarely successful.

Coyote in Oxalis pes-caprae in a San Francisco public park. Herbicides have been used on *Oxalis pes-caprae* in San Francisco’s parks for over 25 years. Over 20% of all herbicide spraying by the Natural Resources Division (NRD) of the Recreation and Park Department was applied to kill oxalis in “natural areas” in 2022. NRD sprayed oxalis 35 times in 2021 and 38 times in 2022. Bees love oxalis. *Oxalis pes-caprae* is native to South Africa, but there are 4 species of oxalis native to Northern California. Source: https://milliontrees.me/2023/02/28/the-oxalis-obsession/

Tallamy concedes that “on average just 14% of the natives in a given region feed more than 90% of local butterflies and moths.” That’s a striking admission: it means a small set of keystone natives is doing nearly all the ecological work, while the remaining 86% of native species contribute comparatively little. That’s hard to square with the blanket claim that gardeners must plant natives indiscriminately. The data suggest that keystone status, not native origin itself, is what matters.
Jabr takes issue with some of Tallamy’s “grandiose claims” and notes that “polarized attitudes toward native and introduced species” are controversial. He says that “introduced species have few noticeable effects or provide ecological benefits” and names a few examples.
He quotes Professor Emeritus Art Shapiro as saying that more than 30% of California’s butterfly species use introduced plants as hosts for their larvae, because those plants have leaf chemistry similar to their native hosts, and that “some North American butterflies have even expanded their geographic ranges and reproductive seasons by adapting to foreign plants.”
Jabr also quotes Professor Emily Meineke (UC Davis) about a project seeking the most suitable street trees from warmer regions to tolerate the warming, drier climate in Davis, California.
Jabr acknowledges that “all life is equally Earthly” because all “extant species are branches of a single ancient trunk.” That’s the fundamental truth missing from Tallamy’s ideology: all life on Earth is related. Jabr also advises ecologically minded gardeners to focus on what plants do rather than where they’re from.

Ultimately, Jabr lands firmly in Tallamy’s camp. His concluding paragraphs describe how, after visiting Tallamy, he began replacing introduced plants in his own garden with natives and he believes the swap has brought more wildlife to his yard.

An Alternative Perspective

Two days after the Times published Jabr’s article, Garden Rant published a piece by Nathan Lambstrom, the same academic botanist who reported data manipulation in a Tallamy study. “The War on Invasive Species” offers a contrasting view of nativist purism. It is grounded in extensive, cited documentation and provides numerous examples of non-native plants’ contributions to wildlife. It also documents the harmful consequences — especially from herbicide use — of attempts to eradicate non-native plants.

Lambstrom concludes, in his usual even-handed way: “I do not dispute that invasive plants and animals, especially predators, are associated with ecological change, sometimes quite significant. Though we often must intervene to mitigate that change, my hope is that we can move past a dichotomous framing of natives versus non-natives and invasives, and move towards recognizing ecological value wherever it occurs, responding carefully and appropriately while our ecosystems adapt to the presence of these new residents. I believe this is the soundest and only realistic way forward.”

Jabr interviewed Lambstrom for his Times article, but didn’t quote him or mention the data manipulation in Tallamy’s study. Times readers were denied the chance to learn more about a genuinely controversial issue.

Public Reaction

Comments on Jabr’s article are overwhelmingly favorable. Most are from gardeners thrilled with the results of replacing their lawns with native plants. It stands to reason that more plants bring more life to a garden. It’s less obvious that a purely native garden brings more life than a diverse garden that prolongs blooming and provides a bigger menu for wildlife. Native vegetation looks dead during our long California summer dry season. A few all-native gardens in my neighborhood look more like vacant lots than intentional gardens from May to November. Many of my neighbors have made a transition to drought and heat tolerant succulents and cactus, not native to our region.

Many commenters are angry about Jabr’s few mild misgivings about Tallamy’s version of nativism. Their comments display the kind of bullying that less purist gardeners find intimidating.

What’s Missing

Here’s what I think is missing from Jabr’s article. I offer what I believe are the strongest arguments against Tallamy’s version of nativism in the natural world.

Global warming is a far greater threat to life on Earth than any single plant species, native or not. All plants — native and non-native alike — remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, store carbon in the soil, and emit oxygen. Tallamy’s ideology encourages gardeners, and the public land managers who’ve adopted his approach, to eradicate non-native plants in favor of natives. But public land managers rarely have the resources to replace what they remove, and eradication on public land is typically done with herbicides. Herbicides kill the fungi and microbes in the soil that facilitate carbon storage and plant growth. In that sense, Tallamy’s ideology, as currently practiced on public land, contributes to the very climate change that threatens plant and animal life with extinction.

This is one of many tree graveyards in San Francisco’s public parks. Nearly 30 years ago, San Francisco’s park department designated one-third of their parkland as “natural areas,” about 1,100 acres. Because pre-settlement San Francisco was mostly treeless, the creation of the so-called Natural Areas Program obligated San Francisco to destroy much of its urban forest, which is predominantly non-native. In the case shown, the trees were mostly Monterey pines, which are native in Monterey, California, less than 150 miles away. There is also fossil evidence that Monterey pines lived in the San Francisco Bay Area in the distant past. Source: https://milliontrees.me/2022/08/01/creating-tree-graveyards-in-san-francisco/

I encourage home gardeners to plant whatever they want. If they prefer an exclusively native garden, that’s their prerogative. The native plant movement becomes controversial only when it drives destructive eradication projects on public land — parks, in particular — that rely on herbicides because herbicides require less labor and cost less. Such projects expose the public to toxic chemicals and damage the soil by killing beneficial fungi and microbes. Non-selective herbicides such as RoundUp are as likely to kill natives as non-natives.

“Nature’s Best Hope” is evolution, not native plants. For roughly 3.5 billion years — since not long after Earth itself formed, 4.6 billion years ago — life has survived by evolving adaptations to changing climate and environmental conditions, including cataclysmic events like the asteroid that struck Earth 66 million years ago, wiping out the dinosaurs and accelerating the evolution of mammals. It is not the strongest or most intelligent species that survives, but the one most able to adapt to change. Ninety-eight percent of all plant and animal species that have ever existed on Earth have gone extinct as the Earth continuously changes. What exists here now is adapted to present conditions that are now undergoing rapid, accelerating change.

In a rapidly changing climate, it’s unlikely that plants native to pre-European, pre-industrial North America 500 years ago are best adapted to current conditions. That fiction is sustained by American ignorance of evolution. In 2024, a Gallup poll found that only 24% of Americans believe humans evolved without God’s involvement, a share that has risen steadily since 2000. Thirty-seven percent of the public still believes that God created humans in their present form. That ignorance of evolution also obscures how closely related plants are: entire plant families, most containing both native and non-native species, share similar chemistry, enabling insects to use both natives and non-natives within the same family.

Humans cannot stop evolution, nor should we try. Doug Tallamy has won this round. The ultimate victor will be climate change, because we’ve decided to do nothing about it. Unless we get a grip on climate change, it’s senseless to quibble about native plants.

(1) “I Wanted an Ecologically Responsible Garden. It Was Harder Than I Thought,” Ferris Jabr, New York Times Magazine, July 7, 2026

Luther Burbank: The Plant Inventor

Luther Burbank was born in Massachusetts in 1849, the 13^th of 15 children. As a child, he had an interest in nature. With an inheritance from his father, who died when Burbank was 18 years old, he purchased a 17-acre farm in Massachusetts.

Burbank bought his small farm intending to be a market farmer, selling seasonal fruits and vegetables. He was handicapped by challenging climate and growing conditions and competition from other market farmers with a head start. He could see that he would have to produce the best produce and offer it before his competitors could, which pushed him down the path of improving the plants he grew.

Burbank’s methods for improving plants

Burbank found his inspiration as a breeder of improved plants in his local library where he found the writings of Charles Darwin. He could see that the concept of natural selection described by Darwin, applied equally to breeding plants. He wrote, “It opened a new world to me. It told me, in plain simple sentences, as matter-of-fact as though its marvelous and startling truths were commonplace that variations seemed to be susceptible, through selection, of permanent fixture in the individual…I doubt if it is possible to make anyone realize what this book meant me.” (1)

Burbank quickly put his new understanding of selection to use as a means to improve the food crops he grew. He developed the Burbank potato that is known today as the Burbank russet potato. He found a seed ball on his potato plants containing 23 seeds. He grew the seeds, selecting the plants that produced the best potatoes in successive crops until he had a potato with smooth skin and few eyes that tasted good and stored well. It was also mildly resistant to the blight that caused the potato famine in Ireland, which killed one million people and caused a mass exodus from Ireland.

He understood that he had created a valuable commodity, but he couldn’t see how he could profit from it because he couldn’t produce it at scale on his small property and he didn’t have the commercial infrastructure to market it widely. At the time, it wasn’t possible to patent new plant varieties, so he sold his new variety to an established seed merchant for $150. It was a paltry sum, even at the time, but it was the beginning of a business model that financed most of Burbank’s career as a plant inventor.

Charles Darwin also introduced Burbank to another method of improving plants in his publication, “The Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilization in the Vegetable Kingdom.” Burbank described how Darwin led him to the realization that hybridization is another means of improving the quality and performance of plants: “One sentence in the very introductory chapter of that volume opened the door of my mind and took possession of my fancy. After discussing briefly the marvel of cross- and self-fertilization in plants, Darwin said: ‘As plants are adapted by such diversified and effective means for cross-fertilization, it might have inferred from this fact alone that they derive some great advantage from the process; and it is the object of the present work to show the nature and importance of the benefits thus derived [from hybridization].’” (1)

Darwin identified natural selection and hybridization as tools of evolution that produced plants and animals best adapted to current environmental conditions. When environmental conditions changed, as they have constantly over 4.6 billion years of the Earth’s existence, natural selection and hybridization enabled the survival of plants and animals best adapted to changed conditions. Using the same methods, but different criteria, Burbank bred the plants that conformed to the needs of humans: the most flavorful fruit, sturdy enough to be transported from fields to tables and the most beautiful flowers, in the opinion of humans. Burbank directed and accelerated evolution to serve humans, using the tools of natural evolution.

Grafting the branches of one type of fruit onto the root stock of another species of tree was the third method Burbank used to create new plants. Most orchard fruit is grown from grafting because growing fruit trees from seeds is unpredictable. The seeds of a flavorful apple, don’t necessarily grow into a tree that produces an equally flavorful apple. It takes years for some fruit trees to produce fruit, which can ultimately produce disappointing fruit. Grafting is a means of reducing risk and accelerating production.

California’s Bounty

After years of economic hardship, Burbank moved to California in 1875 at the age of 26 to join his brothers. Instantly, he was an enthusiastic promoter of the ideal climate and growing conditions of his new home in Santa Rosa. He bought 4 acres of land where he built a greenhouse, nursery, and experimental fields. Later, he bought an 18-acre plot of land in nearby Sebastopol he called the Gold Ridge Farm, where his experiments expanded.

Luther Burbank Home & Garden, Santa Rosa. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

In California, Burbank had the climate and the acreage needed to run many experiments on fruit and nut trees as well as vegetables and flowers simultaneously. Each experiment required planting thousands of individual plants, grown through many generations. These experiments produced hundreds of varieties of many species of plants:

Fruits
113 plums and prunes
69 nuts
35 fruiting cactus
16 blackberries
13 raspberries
11 quinces
11 plumcots
10 cherries
10 strawberries
10 apples
8 peaches
6 chestnuts
5 nectarines
4 grapes
4 pears
3 walnuts
2 figs
1 almond
Grains, grasses, forage
9 types
Vegetables
26 types
Ornamentals
91 types
Source: Wikipedia

Finding His Tribe: Scientist or Businessman?

By the turn of the century, Burbank had made his reputation as the creator of new plant varieties. He captured the attention of scientists who wanted to adopt him into their community, learn his methods, and teach them to their students: “The San Francisco Chronicle advocates the seizing of Luther Burbank at his home in Santa Rosa and placing him in a chair at Stanford University….The main thing is to get the recluse away from his practical experiments long enough to tell people what he has done.” Los Angeles Times, June 7, 1901.

Burbank was invited to give a series of lectures at Stanford University at a time when botanical scientists were newly influenced by the discovery of the role of genetics in producing individual variations in plants and animals. Gregor Mendel’s studies of genetic variation done in the 1860s was buried in the archives of Mendel’s local botanical society until 1900, when they were rediscovered.

Burbank’s audience at Stanford was expecting his lecture to reflect the mechanistic determinism of Mendelian genetics. Instead, they got a dose of Burbank’s almost mystical view of the workings of nature “…as an intricate web of vibrations and magnetic forces where ‘all motion, all life, all force, all so-called matter are following the same law of heredity found in plants and animals, a forward movement toward attraction through lines of least resistance.’” (1)

Today, our understanding of genetics is more nuanced than it was over one hundred years ago and it is more consistent with Burbank’s observations. With the help of molecular analysis, we now know that there are hundreds of unexpressed genes that are latent unless triggered in response to specific growing conditions as well as random mutations. Burbank’s view of variation in nature was based on close, persistent observation and his own subjective intuition, based on decades of experience.

The Carnegie Institute of Technology tried to bridge this gap between science and Burbank’s art of creating new plant varieties by giving him a generous grant of $10,000 per year on the condition that a botanical scientist would trail Burbank in the field and turn his art into a data-driven algorithm capable of replicating Burbank’s accomplishments.

The scientist assigned to that task was immediately frustrated by the haphazard jumble of Burbank’s sketchy record-keeping. Watching Burbank in the field was equally frustrating. Burbank couldn’t translate the choices he made into words because his judgment was intuitive. Finally, The Carnegie Institute lost patience with the project and terminated the grant.

Henry Ford and Thomas Edison came to visit Luther Burbank in 1915 after their visit to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. It was a meeting of the minds and kindred spirits. They were businessmen whose commercial success was based on tireless effort, continuous incremental improvement, and practical invention. They were Burbank’s tribe, who became fast friends for the rest of their lives.

Thomas Edison, Luther Burbank, Henry Ford. Santa Rosa, 1915

Burbank Defends Evolution

It took Charles Darwin nearly 20 years to publish his treatise on evolution, On the Origin of Species, partly because he knew it challenged some of the basic premises of organized religion to which his family was committed. The evidence that life on Earth evolved over millions of years directly contradicted the religious belief that God created all life on Earth, as it presently exists, only 6,000 years ago. Evolution is also inconsistent with the religious belief that humans are chosen by God to rule the world and that all other creatures are subservient to our command.

In fact, pushback to the concept of evolution was minimal in the 19^th century after Origin of Species was published in 1859. Full-throated opposition to evolution emerged in the 20^th century and is epitomized by the Scopes trial that occurred in 1925, just one year before Burbank’s death.

The Scopes trial occurred because the state of Tennessee banned the teaching of evolution in public schools. The ACLU persuaded a high school teacher, John Scopes, to test the law. Two of the greatest orators of the time, stepped forward to try this important case. Clarence Darrow, defended Scopes for the ACLU. William Jennings Bryon was the prosecutor for the state of Tennessee.

Both Darrow and Bryon asked Luther Burbank to appear as a witness at the trial, which was an indication that the public was confused about Burbank’s close relationship with the natural world. Much to the disappointment of William Jennings Bryon, who considered himself a personal friend of Burbank’s, Burbank came down unequivocally in support of the teaching evolution.

In a letter submitted as evidence in the trial, Burbank said, “Those who would legislate against the teaching of evolution should also legislate against the teaching of gravity, electricity, and the unreasonable velocity of light, and also introduce a clause to prevent the use of the telescope, the microscope…or any other instrument of precision which in the future may be invented…for the discovery of truth.” (1)

Despite Burbank’s effort, Scopes was found guilty and the ban on teaching evolution in Tennessee remained in effect until 1967. In 2024, the Gallup Poll reported that only 24% of Americans believe in evolution unguided by God, a percentage that has increased steadily since 2000. The dominate view—at 37%–is that humans were created by God in their present form:

In a series of interviews with the news media, Burbank expressed his doubts about the afterlife and his admiration and kinship with Christ as a man rather than a deity: “[Christ] was an infidel of his day because he railed against the prevailing religions and his government. I am a lover of Christ as a man, and his work and all things that help humanity, but nevertheless just as he was an infidel then, I am an infidel today.” (1)

Burbank’s Last Success

By any measure, Burbank must be considered a success. Although he managed to make a living, he was not wealthy because his plant inventions could not be patented. Without patent protection, profits were realized by seed merchants, nurseries, and agricultural operations.

Burbank made many appeals to the US Patent Office for patent protection. His appeals sounded desperate and angry about the unfairness that often threatened him with economic ruin. His death in 1926 at the age of 77 sparked another campaign by other plant breeders to extend patent law to the development of new plant varieties.

The effort to extend patent law to plants was boosted by the Great Depression, which began in 1929. Farmers are always in debt as they must borrow money to plant their next crop. When commodity prices collapsed during the depression, many farmers lost their farms.

The proposal to extend patent law to plant “inventions” was perceived by many politicians as a way to help farmers, although the logic of that connection is questionable because patented seeds are likely to be more expensive. Despite that concern, the Plant Patent Act was passed with little opposition in 1930. There were many limitations on the first patent law, many of which have since been revised.

Sixteen of Burbank’s creations received patents, a small fraction of the plants being developed at the time of Burbank’s death.

We can still learn from Luther Burbank

I encourage readers to visit Luther Burbank’s home and garden in Santa Rosa, which is now a free public park, and the museum that is open during summer months. You will find many informational signs throughout the garden about Burbank’s inventions. You won’t find any hint of a nativist bias in the signs. This sign about creating a garden for butterflies makes it clear that these lovely creatures have no preference for native plants:

Luther Burbank Garden, Santa Rosa, CA. 2025

(1) The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants, Jane S. Smith, Penguin Books, 2009