If the extinction of a single species,
It's the sniper's god who strikes,
Well, destroy a place contained
Habitats for a variety of unique creatures,
It is tantamount to declaring war on nature.
The typical war of this kind once took place in Hawaii65, the seemingly most beautiful state in the United States. To the eyes of most residents and visitors, it feels like an island paradise that has not yet been destroyed. In fact, it is a killing staging ground for biodiversity. When Polynesian navigators first set foot in Hawaii in 400 AD, the archipelago was the closest thing the world has ever seen to the Garden of Eden. In that dense forest and fertile valley, there are no mosquito flies, no ants, no stinging wasps, no venomous snakes or venomous spiders, and few thorny or poisonous plants. Today, the above-mentioned "unfortunate" species, which now fill the island, have been brought in by human commercial activities, some deliberately, some inadvertently.
In Hawaii before humans landed, biological species were both diverse and unique. From the seaside to the mountains, it's filled with at least 125 species, and even as many as 145 species of birds that can't be seen elsewhere. Native eagles soar over dense woods, which are home to strange long-legged owls and honeycreepers with shiny feathers. On the ground, a flightless ibis is foraging with moa-nalos, which cannot fly, with a body shape similar to a goose and a beak that looks a bit like a turtle, a Hawaiian version of the dodo (the big bird of ancient Mauritius). These Hawaiian-endemic creatures are now almost extinct.
Of Hawaii's native birds, only 35 remain, of which 24 are endangered and 12 are so rare that they may never be able to recover. Only a few survivors, mostly small honey-spiny wood finches, can also be glimpsed in scattered low-lying habitats. Most of the survivors cling to the rain-rich dense forests and alpine canyons, as far away from human tracks as possible. "To see hawaiian birds," stuart l. pimm, an ornithologist, after a series of fieldwork, "you have to get cold, wet, and tired." ”
Today's Hawaii is still rich in biodiversity, but it is mostly man-made: most plants and animals can easily find their source. Among the exotic plants surrounding the resort and hillside shrublands, there are a variety of larks, striped and spotted pigeons, ducks, mockingbirds, warblers, starlings, plum finches, rice-eating birds, and red-crowned waxbills, none of which are native to Hawaii. Like visitors who admire them, they travel to Hawaii by boat or plane. Therefore, the same type of bird can be seen in other temperate and tropical regions of the world.
Hawaii's plants are equally beautiful, even too beautiful. However, among the plants that occupy the lowlands, there are few objects that were cut down and reclaimed by the Polynesian colonists when they first arrived. Of the 1935 flowering plants identified by botanists today, 902 are exotic, and they occupy almost all of Hawaii except for the most primitive habitats. Even in the coastal lowlands and lower slopes, which seem to be the most natural habitats, most of their plants are introduced from the outside world. From the perspective of biogeographic distribution, Hawaii's verdant valleys are actually full of alien creatures. Even the garlands that locals help tourists put on are taken from exotic plants.
Hawaii once had more than 10,000 species of native plants and animals. Many are even considered the most unique and beautiful species in the world. Their source is hundreds of pioneer species, and they are very fortunate to have landed on the world's most distant islands under natural conditions, and it took millions of years of evolution to become such a rich appearance. However, the number of these species has been greatly reduced. In ancient Hawaii, only a wisp of ghost hovered among the mountains, and our planet was even more pitiful because of its tragic experience.
It all started with the earliest Polynesians, who apparently hunted them to extinction when they discovered that there were some flightless, easy-to-catch birds on the island. When colonists destroyed forests and grasslands for farming, other flora and fauna were also eliminated. In 1778, according to the observations of Captain James Cook (1728-1799), the first European to discover Hawaii, bananas, breadfruit, and sugar cane grew at the foot of a large lowland and inland mountain. Over the next 200 years, Americans and colonists from elsewhere occupied the land and the rest of the land, planting sugar cane and pineapple as bulk export crops. Today, less than a quarter of Hawaii's land remains intact, and most of it is confined to the steepest and hardest-to-climb parts of the interior of the mountains. If Hawaii had been more flat, like Barbados or the Pacific Atolls, there would have been no trace of its ancient landscape.
Alien creatures landed in Hawaii
Originally, hawaiian fauna and flora were mainly caused by habitat disintegration, but today, the biggest threat comes from invasive species. The prehistoric Hawaiian biota was very small and fragile. When the archipelago was colonized, especially after it became the commercial and transportation center of the Pacific Ocean in the 20th century, the influx of exotic plants, animals, and microorganisms from subtropical and tropical regions of the world began to crowd out and eliminate native species.
This biological invasion in Hawaii can be seen as a version of Darwin's evolutionary process that has been abnormally accelerated. Before the arrival of humans, there may be only one species that can successfully move across the Pacific Ocean in the millennium. Some come against the wind. This flight does not necessarily require wings, and many flightless creatures are also rolled up by the updraft and then carried away by the wind, as if plankton in the air, involuntarily. Many spiders deliberately join the plankton population. They stand on a leaf or twig and spit silk at the blowing wind, making the silk thread longer and longer until the silk thread is like a balloon, forcefully pulling the spider. At this time, the spider suddenly relaxed, and it rose against the wind. If the updraft and wind are chosen, they may drift a long distance before landing on the ground – or they will fall into the water and die. Some spiders will even deliberately arrange their landing by rolling up or biting off the silk thread. Therefore, it is not surprising that native Hawaiian spiders are very rich and diverse.
Other, less experienced travelers are lifted up by storms and sent to the island, or they come across the ocean like travelers or on rafts or clinging to floating debris formed by plants washed down by the flood.
However, before the advent of humans, the probability of creatures drifting to Hawaii to settle down was frighteningly high. For millions of years, although many species have tried this blind crossing of the Pacific Ocean, not many have successfully landed. Even if they did land, these vanguard troops would still have to face many dangers and obstacles. First, there must be a ready-made niche waiting there – a place where habitable, with suitable food, with partners to mate and few (or no) predators. Only species that have survived the test and successfully multiplied in this way are eligible to become candidates for evolutionary adaptation in Hawaii's unique environment. Over time, they developed genetic traits not seen in other regions, becoming truly endemic to Hawaii. Some creatures, such as sunflowers, honeycombnchs, and fruit flies, eventually diverged into several different species, each with a unique lifestyle, creating adaptive radiation66, which also made Hawaiian naturalism brilliant.
Polynesian navigators from the Society and Marquesas islands broke the otherwise strict barrier of biological evolution. Thanks to the massive introduction of pigs, rats, crops, and other creatures that were already widespread on small islands in the center of the Pacific Ocean, they suddenly increased the rate of biological colonization by thousands of times. When Americans and other settlers appeared, this time introducing other species not just from neighboring islands, but from around the world, Hawaii's invasion of alien life was a skyrocket. Birds, mammals and plants were deliberately introduced in accordance with human values. As a result, most of Hawaii's birds and nearly half of their plants are now exotic species. Insects, spiders, lice, and other arthropods were inadvertently introduced and, like stowaways, lurked in the ship's cargo hold or ballast. On average, about 20 such species are detected each year in quarantine, but some sneak in and settle in.
In the late 1990s, a total of 8,790 species of insects and other arthropods were identified in Hawaii, of which 3,055, or 35 percent of the total, were exotic species. As for all the species of organisms (including flora, fauna and microorganisms) in all of Hawaii's land and surrounding shallow seas, there are 22,070 species, of which 4,373 are alien species. This number is up to half the number of known Hawaiian endemic species 8805. Not only that, but the number of alien species also dominates, especially in the most disturbing environments. As a result, the settlers occupied most of Hawaii.
Outsiders do evil
Most of the invaders are harmless, and only a small number multiply, large enough to become agricultural pests or endanger the natural environment. But these few out-of-control species do have the ability to cause great harm. Biologists can't yet predict which aliens might become alien species, which is the official term for harmful aliens by FBI officials. These harmful species are usually humble in their native areas, because they are surrounded by predators and other predators that have evolved with them over time. Now freed from confinement, they have come to Hawaii, a long-isolated and mild environment, enjoying the fruits of super-successful reproduction while suppressing, exterminating or squeezing out native species that are vulnerable to attacks from alien species.
The first to destroy the Hawaiian biota were, in addition to human influences, the African megacephala (pheidole megacephala) and the feral domestic pig (sus scrofera). African big-headed ants live in a super colony with no limit on the number of workers, up to millions of worker ants, and many queens responsible for fertility. As soon as they came out of the hole, it was as if a long sheet of bedding spread, and if other insects stood in their way, they would either be eaten or expelled. Worker ants are divided into two categories: those that are small and slender, foraging in one-way columns on the ground, and those with large heads, who are adept at dismembering enemies or prey with their large heads and sharp palates. The African big-headed ants are notorious: they wipe out most of the insects native to the Hawaiian lowlands, including pollinators of native flowers. In addition, they also disrupt the food chain. Eliminating insects is tantamount to reducing the food sources of some insectivorous birds, so they are likely to be responsible for the extinction of these birds as well.
In other areas that have not been colonized by the African big-headed ants, another alien super colony, the Argentine ants (linepithema humile), also dominate the ground in a similar way, using aggressive and venom-secreting strategies to conquer their opponents. When the African big-headed ant meets the Argentine ant, the two legions will fight for the dominance of the small soil kingdom, and the result is to split the ground in two. Only a few flies, beetles, and other insects have a way of escaping their combined slaughter, but most of these survivors are also immigrants. Hawaiian ants, like hawaiian humans, are outsiders who rule over other outsiders in an increasingly impoverished territory.
The fragility of the Hawaiian fauna in the face of invasive ants fits well with a common evolutionary principle. For tens of millions of years, ants have been almost the preyers of the world's most dominant insects and other small animals. They are also excellent body scavengers, and their earth-turning skills are no less than or even better than earthworms. Before humans came to Hawaii, because it was completely isolated, there was never such a thing as ants. In fact, no native ants have been found on small islands in the central Pacific east of Tonga. As a result, Hawaii's flora and fauna evolved to be suitable for living in an environment free of ants. None of them were prepared to deal with such competent group predators. As a result, a large group of native Hawaiian species, which had not yet been able to be estimated in detail, were wiped out by the invading enemy group.
Similarly, Hawaii's environment is not ready to accept ground-dwelling mammals. Before humans arrived, only two species of mammals lived in Hawaii: the native hoary bat and the Hawaiian monk seal. However, 42 species of mammals were introduced, each of which threatened Hawaii's flora and fauna to some extent.
Domestic pigs, first introduced by polynesians, were particularly destructive. Some domestic pigs escaped or were deliberately abandoned, becoming the first large mammals to enter the local forest. Their now-wild descendants are closer to European wild boars than mild domestic pigs. They have more than 100,000 heads, weaving through Hawaiian woods, nibbling on bark and roots, pushing or uprooting trees. After the small tree fell, a hole was opened in the canopy of the forest, allowing the otherwise impenetrable sunlight to reach the forest surface, changing the ecosystem of the soil. In addition, pigs will sow the seeds of some exotic plants through feces in addition to foraging, so the growth of these plants occupies the living space of native plants. Pigs also like to dig mud pits and roll around, and mud pits become reservoirs. The only native animals that benefit from this are bean maidens, as their larvae live in water. But watering holes can also breed mosquitoes, spreading avian malaria to local birds that are completely resistant to the disease.
Pigs were deliberately brought into Hawaii by humans, and the only way to stop them from doing evil was human beings. Groups of pig hunters with specially trained hounds have greatly reduced the number of pigs in the nature reserve, but there is no way to completely eliminate them. In 2000, for example, about 4,000 pigs came and went in the National Volcano Park on Hawaii's largest island.
Other mammals that have been introduced have gradually increased their harm to the environment. Rats, badgers, and feral house cats hunt birds from Hawaiian forests. Goats and cattle gnaw on remnants of native plants on open ground. Some native plant species, with only a small number of individuals left, grow on extremely difficult cliffs to climb, but even there is no safety, because animals foraging on the cliffs may loosen the soil or rocks, causing falling soil or falling rocks and endangering them.
Species extinction factors
Because Hawaii's environment is fairly simple, it can be seen as a natural laboratory to show how the natural environment around the world is hit by external forces. Among them, the lesson we have learned is that special species rarely become extinct for a single reason. Most typically, multiple external forces reinforce each other with human activities, and may apply pressure at the same time or in turn, causing the number of species to decline. These external forces have been summarized by environmental biologists and summarized in the initial letters as hippo:67
Habitat destruction: For example, three-quarters of Hawaii's forests are deforested, and many species inevitably decline or even become extinct.
Invasive species: Ants, pigs, and other exotic species have replaced native Hawaiian species.
Pollution: The island's freshwater, coastal water, and soil are polluted, weakening or exterminating more species.
Population: More people means stronger hippo effects.
Overharvesting: During the earlier Polynesian occupation, certain species, especially birds, were hunted until they became rare and then extinct.
The driving force behind environmental damage is the second p in hippo, because too many people occupy too much land and ocean, and the resources in it. So far, about 205,000 species of flora, fauna, and microbes have been officially recorded throughout the United States. Recent studies of so-called "focal" organisms (more well-known organisms, such as vertebrates and flowering plants) have shown that in addition to overpopulation, the destructive forces of other external forces on the environment are in order of importance, in the same order as the hippo alphabetical order, with the most lethal being habitat destruction and the smallest being over-harvesting. In the Paleolithic, however, when sophisticated hunters slaughtered large mammals and flightless birds, the destructive force of the above factors was inverted, namely oppih, from over-harvesting to relatively minimal habitat destruction. At that time, the pollution was negligible, and the alien species probably only had to exert influence on the island. But by the Time of the Neolithic Age, when culture and agriculture spread, the ordering began to reverse. The rearranged hippo became a demon on land and ended up in the ocean.
Environmental biologists, whose focus is on the overall problem of environmental decline, have begun to study what factors related to hippo but are not easy to estimate can also weaken or exterminate biodiversity. Each case is due to the characteristics of endangered species, coupled with human activities pushing them to a specific corner. Only by focusing on the focus of the organism can researchers diagnose the crux of the endangered species and then devise the best way to return the species to normal state.