The document discusses the concept of ecological utility in relation to native plants, emphasizing the detrimental effects of domesticating or hybridizing them, which can turn them into non-native plants and reduce their ecological roles. It outlines how these alterations affect the relationships between species in ecosystems and questions the blurred definitions between native and domesticated plants. The text underscores the importance of maintaining genetic diversity to ensure the survival and utility of plants within their ecosystems.

1. Using Ecological Utility to Define
Native Plants

3. Clean Air
Clean Water
Open Space

5. Walk more
Tinker less

6. ABSTRACT - One of the least understood concepts in
phytoecology is ecological utility in relationship to the
definition of a native plant. Presently, native plants
are domesticated, hybridized and otherwise altered
without thought to the destruction this tampering
does to ecological utility and hence ecosystems. By
altering the chemical, physical and phenological
properties of native plants, “scientists” intent on
“saving”, “improving” or commercializing these plants
are creating non-native plants which can drive
dependent species to extinction. The resultant
cascade through an ecosystem can be catastrophic.

7. the
relationship
between an
individual organism
and another individual
organism
(single flower/single pollinator).
the relationships between individual
species to each other
(single flower species/single pollinator species)
the relationships between groups of organisms in an
ecosystem such as pollinators and flowers
the relationships of all the organisms in a ecosystem to each other
the relationships of organisms in one ecosystem to those in another ecosystem
Hierarchy of mutualistic ecological relationships

8. The relationship in the first level of the pyramid,
between an individual organism and another
individual organism
(single flower/single pollinator)
is the most important and defines the rest of the
relationships in the pyramid.

9. Altering this relationship
alters every relationship in the
pyramid.

10. This leads to a very important question we need
to answer in phytoecology - the difference
between a native plant and a non-native plant.

11. In Invasive Plant Ecology we have the Enemy Release
Hypothesis.
In part, this states that an overwhelming number of
native organisms cannot use non-native plants
because they did not coevolve together.

12. By changing the genetic structure of a native plant
through domestication or hybridization with
another species in hopes of “improving” the plant
or making it resistant to diseases or pests is
doomed to be an ecological failure because of the
reduced number of native organisms using the
altered native plant due the unnaturally rapid
changes in the physical, chemical and temporal
properties of the plant.

13. Therefore, domesticating or hybridizing a native
plant, with another native or especially a non-
native, creates a non-native plant of reduced
ecological utility.

14. These common ornamental “native wildflowers” have been or are in
the process of becoming domesticated.
Are they still native plants?

15. There are three types of plants we need to
define when thinking about ecological utility:
1.) native plants
2.) domesticated plants/native crops*
3.) non-native plants
*Native crops are domesticated native plants.

16. A native plant in the Americas is any plant which
precedes European, African or Asian contact
that is not:
1. domesticated,
2. hybridized with another species or
3. otherwise (directly) changed by
human mediation.

17. Examples of native crops:

21. An important question: Does a plantation or forest
of native trees such as Pinus strobus and Quercus
rubra which are important for timber and selected
to maximize this trait change their status from a
native plant to a domesticated plant/crop?

23. Lycopodium dendroideum (ground pine) is
commonly used in Christmas decorations such as
wreathes.

24. Medeola virginiana, Indian cucumber-root, and
Asarum canadense, wild ginger, are food and
ornamental plants found near my home.

25. Are these native plants or domesticated plants?
Or is it more situational?

26. My delineation between a native plant and a
domesticated plant is the point at which a plant is
actively cultivated because that is when extensive
culling of outlying traits begins with the resultant
severe homogenization of traits which defines
domestication.

27. By culling the outlying traits, the resultant
homogenization of the genome of a plant species
removes the heterogeneity which is the essential
element of ecological utility.
X
X X
X

28. Not only does this process limit the number of
species using a plant, it also limits the number of
individuals within a species using that plant.

29. The heterogeneity in an organism
utilized must match the heterogeneity in
the species using it.

30. In other words, we do not want to create non-
native plants because it destroys their ecological
utility in multiple ways such as a food source for
pollinators, a food for larvae, their utility for
decomposers and organisms that depend on this
relationship, their functionality with soil fungi,
their competitiveness, their phenological traits
and a long list of other potential negative
impacts.

31. Only some native generalist organisms, whether
they are insects, mammals, birds, reptiles,
amphibians, fungi, protozoa, bacteria or even
other plants can utilize these new non-native
plants.

32. This means the extinction of many native
specialist organisms and their interrelationships
with other organisms in a cascade from the
highest to the lowest ecological levels.

33. Another way of stating this is that:
Wild organisms, such as pollinators, within a
species and between species have genetic
variability in size, shape, maturity rates, growth
rates, food preferences, habitat preferences and
their ability to use different individuals within
the same species of a plant population.

34. The differences may appear small to us, but can
be large in the local ecology.

35. A great example is the misguided work being
done by the American Chestnut Foundation on
the American chestnut, Castanea dentata.

36. In the following photos note the difference
in
1. the shape of the leaves,
2. their albedo (reflectance/shininess),
3. thickness and
4. texture.

37. Native American chestnut near the Appalachian Trail in a PA Game
Commission State Game Land SGL 110 “north” of Rt. 183.

38. Native American chestnut near the Appalachian Trail in a PA Game
Commission State Game Land SGL 110 “north” of Rt. 183.

39. Native American chestnut along the Appalachian Trail near the
Hamburg Reservoir.

40. Native American chestnut near the Appalachian Trail in a PA Game
Commission State Game Land SGL 110 “south” of Rt. 183.

41. Hybridized chestnut near the Appalachian Trail in a PA Game
Commission State Game Land SGL 217 near the Allentown Shelter.

42. Hybridized chestnut near the Appalachian Trail in a PA Game
Commission State Game Land SGL 110 near the Auburn Overlook.

43. Hybridized chestnut near the Appalachian Trail on the edge of a private
yard down the north side of Blue Mountain from the Eagles Nest
Shelter.

44. Hybridized chestnut near the Appalachian Trail in a PA Game
Commission State Game Land SGL 217 near the Allentown Shelter.

45. 4/4/2017 - 10 out of 20 C. dentata seeds stored in refrigerator last fall had
germinated.

46. Another example

47. These photos are examples of color heterogeneity
within a wild azalea species, Rhododendron
periclymenoides, found within 100 yards of each other
near home in Berks County, PA, on May 19, 2016.

48. A commercial grower of this plant would quickly
make cultivars of each color and sell them as
separate lineages under different names such as
Puberty Pink and Blue Ridge White.

49. The further from wild stock a native plant
becomes the less ecological utility it has because
we naturally and naively collect propagules
(seeds) from what appear to us to be the best
looking and most uniform plants within a defined
time window.

50. Stated again, limiting the phenotypic and
phenological diversity of resource plants by
reducing the sources of genetic material limits
the number of species and individuals within
those species which can utilize a particular plant
species.

51. Additionally, plants which do well in cultivation
often lose the robustness and other traits
necessary to survive in changing wild and semi-
wild conditions.

52. Cultivars, especially those from cuttings,
because of their lack of genetic variability have
lost most of their ecological utility in addition to
creating plants which are more vulnerable to
being destroyed by a single event such as a
pathogen, herbivore infestation or change in
weather.

53. Simply put:
No matter how successful a hybrid or cultivar of a
native plant appears to be it is an ecological failure
because the genetic alterations decrease or destroy
its ecological utility.
“The operation was a success, but the patient died.”

54. Summary

55. Example of a domesticated flower. The lack of different
sizes, colors and shapes has very little ecological utility
because it attracts few species and may be useful to few
members within the species it attracts.

56. X
X
X
X
X
X
X X
X
This is an example of what domestication of a wild plant does to
its physical properties and the organisms using it. The same can
be assumed for chemical properties.
X
X
X X
X
X
X
X

57. X X X XX XXX X
Example of what happens temporally when a plant is domesticated:
the phenological traits change. The number of species and members
within a species utilizing the plant are reduced due to the reduced
time the plant or a trait of the plant such as bloom time is available.
June July August

58. What we want in a plant species is heterogeneity in size, shape, color
and other properties to match the heterogeneity of size, shape and
other property preferences in a species and species utilizing the plant.
The ecological utility in this plant species is high because of its
heterogeneity.

59. What applies to a single species also applies to an ecosystem.

60. Anyone who wants to join me is welcome to grab a
camera, their shoes, a day pack and do so.
We live a few hours from here in northern Berks County, PA.

61. Richard Gardner
rtgardner3@yahoo.com
410.726.3045
http://www.slideshare.net/rtgardner3
https://independent.academia.edu/RichardTGardner

62. Miscellaneous
thoughts and photos

63. An example of ecosystem heterogeneity:
Two years ago I watched a monarch butterfly
(Danaus plexippus) migration on Blue Mountain
near home.
Of the dozens of butterflies I watched, one
preferred the white flowered Boneset (Eupatorium
perfoliatum) while all the others preferred yellow
flowered Goldenrod (Solidago) species.

67. A few important questions

68. What makes this Clymene haploa (moth) chose this flower instead of the
neighboring flower or this patch of flowers instead of others?

69. Why is the cluster of these Great spangled fritillary butterflies on this milkweed
plant instead of others?

70. What are the traits of this Solidago plant which makes it more preferable than others
nearby?

71. For mutualistic relationships to thrive such as
pollinators and flowering plants, native flowering
plants need heterogeneity within the species to
match the same heterogeneity within a pollinator
species and among species using it.