Recently, we have come across many topics about invasive species and the crisis of biodiversity.
I, Cavity Angel, am also concerned about these issues and am one of those people who wonder if there is anything I can do to contribute to solving the problem.
By the way, my attempt to make the Biocube is nothing but a violent act of trapping invasive species collected from all over the world and telling them to get along somehow.
And as a result, the creatures inside somehow seem to have come to terms with it and are doing well (or so it seems).
In general, invasive species are said to be a threat to biodiversity and ecosystems, but how should we understand the relationship between this and "Mini Earth"?
On this topic, there is a strange phenomenon where amateurs boldly express extreme opinions to experts, which I think is not a good thing.
Now, I am by no means an expert, but I would like to state my position as someone who wants to understand and respect the opinions of experts as much as possible.
First of all, the term invasive species certainly has a certain ambiguity and arbitrariness.
To take an extreme example, there was a time when there was only one continent, Pangaea.
However, the natural migration of organisms that occurs without human involvement and the great stirring of life since the Age of Discovery are completely different in scale.
Therefore, it makes sense to draw a line at some point in time and define what an invasive species is.
So why do we define the term invasive species?
Because we have learned from history that the introduction of new species into an ecosystem can sometimes have devastating consequences.
Of course, there are cases where the consequences are not so bad, and there are invasive species that have become so established in the area that eradicating them would threaten native species.
In my opinion, there is no need to eradicate invasive species that have already become established and are not particularly harmful.
The problem is that it is very difficult to predict in advance what effects invasive species will have when they are artificially introduced.
Therefore, if an invasive species is artificially introduced for some reason, strict predictions and observations by experts, as well as consensus from local residents, are necessary.
By the way, there is a term called ecological fitting.
This is a relatively new concept that is not listed on the Japanese Wikipedia, so I am not very sure how accurately I understand it, but I think it means something like "when an organism is placed in an environment different from the one in which it evolved, it adapts well and survives."
My Mini-Earth "Biocube" is something like the ultimate in ecological fitting, but ordinary aquariums are also a mass of ecological fitting.
Also, it is safe to say that the creatures in rice fields (loaches, killifish, prawns, etc.) did not originally evolve in the rice fields themselves, but are species that have adapted to the rice field irrigation channels through ecological fitting.
Ecological fitting is certainly a phenomenon that makes us feel the robustness of creatures and ecosystems.
However, to repeat, there is no guarantee that new invasive species will not destroy the ecosystem, will blend into it through ecological fitting, and will not be inconvenient for humans.
Simply put, this is why we must be wary of invasive species, and why we should not let goldfish escape into the river.
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