Introducing CP in the wild

From: Tassara (strega@split.it)
Date: Sun May 03 1998 - 08:21:50 PDT


Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 17:21:50 +0200
From: strega@split.it (Tassara)
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg1480$foo@default>
Subject: Introducing CP in the wild

Hi list!
Here in northern Italy sarracenias are now flowering.
There was a long discussion on this list about introducing non native CPs in
environments where local CP grow.
The conclusion was that it can be very dangerous to introduce exotic plants
in the wild.

I have now a similar but rather different question to set.

Here and in many other countries CPs are getting very rare, in some cases
they risk to become extinct.
This is due to factors such as over collecting from the wild and habitat
changes.
In Italy nearly all CPs are severely protected by law, but this is
definitely useless if destroying the places where they live is not forbidden
(I've seen a few years ago a large bog, where the rare species D. intermedia
lived, being changed in a nice golf court...; buildings are covering all the
county...nobody cares. This is progress!).

On the other hand, by walking on our mountains I often find places which
look very suitable for CP growing, but where none of them can be found.
This may be due to the fact that these places are not really suitable for
them, but it is also possible that CPs never reached these areas.
CP have now much less chaces than in the past to colonize new places because
many natural connections are interrupted. I mean, nature has ever been
dynamic: disasters happen continuously, but plants and animals have always
been able to move away from a bad place to a better one and then to come
again to the original place once conditions are good again.
If, for example, there are two big bogs some miles one from the other and
between them many small ponds, there are many chances that, year after year
and pond after pond, acquatic plants of one bog will reach the other bog.
But if people respect the two large bogs and destroy the small ponds in
order to build there a village or to grow potatoes no more exchange will be
possible between the two swamps.
So is here the present situation, with many protected areas disjunct one
from the other.
This is the case of Aldrovanda vesiculosa which is disappearing from its
natural habitat probably because of water pollution and is very unlykely to
reach other places by itself.

My question is about the opportunity of helping such a colonization process.
I mean, I could collect seed from the wild and grow the resulting plants
artificially. I can then reproduce them by seed obtainig many other plants.
I could then walk around looking for suitable locations in the natural range
of the species and plant them in the wild.

Somebody wrote that a very small amount of genetic stuff could be not enough
to allow a plant to become estabilished, but probably natural colonization
of new places occurs usually by only a few seeds.
I think CP will not compete with non carnivorous plants making them to
disappear because they have an unique style of life and can survive only
where there is little competition.
Finally, there is no risk of genetic contamination by using indigenous
plants, moreover in places where no other plant of the same species occur.

I'd be very pleased to know any opinion about this delicate argument.

Thank you all

Filippo Tassara
Genova, Italy



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