The Impacts of Invasive Non-Native Plants: A Normative and Conceptual Analysis

该项目考察了规范和概念框架，使植物育种者、苗圃专业人员、植物生态学家、政府官员和其他人能够理解和评估植物育种、作物驯化和为观赏目的引进植物可能导致入侵物种释放的可能性，这些入侵物种会对自然系统、生物多样性和环境造成不必要的影响。这项研究旨在了解对自然系统的哪些影响是不可取的，哪些是可取的，以及为什么。它将试图澄清入侵植物的概念以及对本地生物多样性和生态系统的损害的相关概念。该项目将产生分析论文，探讨本地和外来物种之间的区别，自然和管理之间的区别，殖民和入侵之间的区别，以及生态系统的变化和危害之间的区别。特别是，该项目将探讨尝试预测和评估入侵植物可能对自然系统的内在价值和工具价值构成的威胁和机会的问题和前景。首席研究员将解决以下问题：1)入侵植物对自然系统造成损害的经济估计的作用和可靠性；2)生态科学通过预测外来植物物种的生态影响来指导社会决策的能力；3)保护独特自然区域免受全球商业对植物品种同质化影响的规范性论点的特点、说服力和重要性。所建议的研究将有助于形成关于生态入侵概念和环境危害相关概念的哲学文献。预期的分析论文将为关于入侵物种政策的辩论提供信息，并可以通过澄清当前对自然环境中非本地物种日益增加所带来的经济和生态危害或利益的关注的主张、假设、区别和信念，从而影响政策本身。针对生态入侵的公共政策——以及有关生态入侵的课程——需要进行哲学分析，质疑并澄清潜在的假设和区别。

The project examines the normative and conceptual framework in which plant breeders, nursery professionals, plant ecologists, government officials, and others may understand and assess the possibility that plant breeding, crop domestication, and the introduction of plants for ornamental purposes may lead to the release of invasive species that cause unwanted effects to natural systems, to biological diversity, and to the environment. The research seeks to understand which impacts on natural systems are undesirable, which desirable, and why. It will try to clarify the concept of an invasive plant and related concepts of damage to native biodiversity and to ecological systems. The project will result in analytical papers that probe distinctions between the native and the exotic, between the natural and the managed, between colonization and invasion, and between changes in and harms to ecosystems. In particular, the project will explore the problems and prospects of attempts to predict and to assess the threats and opportunities invasive plants may pose to the intrinsic and to the instrumental value of natural systems. The Principal Investigator will address such questions as 1) the role and reliability of economic estimates of the damage invasive plants cause to natural systems; 2) the ability of ecological science to guide social decision making by predicting the ecological impacts of non-native plant species; and 3) the character, cogency, and importance of normative arguments for protecting unique natural areas against the homogenizing effects of global commerce in varieties of plants. The proposed research will contribute to an emerging philosophical literature on the concept of ecological invasion and on related concepts of environmental harm. The anticipated analytical papers will inform debate over invasive species policy and can influence policy itself by clarifying the claims, assumptions, distinctions, and beliefs that characterize current concerns about the economic and ecological harms or benefits associated with the growing presence of non-native species in the natural environment. Public policy for -- and courses taught about -- ecological invasions need philosophical analyses that question and clarify the underlying assumptions and distinctions.