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Originally Posted by Dillon123
Hey carlos, can you tell me more about the laboratory in jamaica about hybridization of den. lindenii and funalis because I havent heard of it before.
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It's not surprising that you haven't heard of it...because it doesn't exist. Somehow I mistakenly believed that lindenii's distribution range included Jamaica. orchidsarefun noted that, if lindenii and funalis were both in Jamaica, then their co-occurrence would create a natural "laboratory" where we could study whether or not any natural hybridization has occurred. But I was wrong. The Ghost Orchid's distribution is limited to Florida, the Bahamas and Cuba. Although it's entirely possible that it's now extinct in Cuba.
If you ever get a chance to observe funalis in nature, I'd definitely love to hear your description of its habitat. The more details and zoomed out photos the better.
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Originally Posted by gnathaniel
...not terribly well-thought-out ideas...
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shenanigans!
My ideas are actually very wonderfully thought out. The problem is when it comes to articulating them. Unfortunately, there's a lot of stuff that gets lost in translation.
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To everybody who's found fault with herclivation...here's a super friendly suggestion. Go...start a blog. Use it to share your own theoretical approach to protecting the Ghost Orchid.
You should do this even if you think the current approach is beyond reproach. The blog entry would allow you to share the mountain of information that leads you to your conclusion. Making this valuable information more widely available would certainly help generate interest in the conservation of orchids.
Hmmm...but maybe some of my many critics need a carrot..or a stick?
A carrot? We could have a contest perhaps? Maybe have some nurseries sponsor it. The winner could be decided by popular vote...and/or by expert vote. Maybe a panel of experts could pick which approach had the most merit.
A stick? Well...here's what J.S. Mill observed long ago...
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They will not indeed submit to more labours and privations than other people, for the relief of distressed fellow creatures: but they make amends by whining over them more. It is not difficult to trace this sort of affectation to its cause. It originates in the common practice of bestowing upon feelings that praise which actions alone can deserve.
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Is starting a blog a huge action? No, it's a very small action. It's ridiculously easy and completely free. If you have a gmail account then you can use it for
Google's blogging platform. If signing in is too much effort then you can just use the blog feature that this forum provides you with. So you wouldn't even have to come up with a name for your blog. The only thing that you'd have to do is articulate what you think should be done to help protect the Ghost Orchid for future generations. That's super easy...right! The only reason that I've failed so miserably at it is because I fell asleep during high school biology.
If you're not willing to make such a small sacrifice in order to try and help provide relief for your distressed fellow creature the Ghost Orchid...then perhaps your concern is not at all genuine or sincere.
But I'm sure that nobody needs a carrot or a stick...right? I'm sure that we are all genuinely and sincerely concerned with protecting the wonderfully diverse orchid family. So I really look forward to reading and learning from all my critics' blog entries. And it's not like there could ever be too many orchid blogs. Just like there couldn't ever be too many Ghost Orchids.
Oh, and I've done some more digging. Turns out that there's quite a bit of material on the topic of processes vs patterns. As far as I can tell...the pattern approach is the traditional approach. It's an attempt to save a "snapshot" of biodiversity. The process approach, on the other hand, is more focused on identifying and saving the causes of biodiversity.
I'm terrible at analogies but...maybe it's kinda like getting in a car and taking a road trip. Getting out of the car and taking a picture of the scenery would be the pattern approach. With the process approach, you'd get out of the car and look under the hood and check the tires.
Anybody like to offer a better analogy?
The two approaches aren't mutually exclusive per se...but they can be because resources are limited. Probably the most limited resource is time.
Unfortunately, the relevant material isn't the easiest to find because it doesn't have a search friendly label like "herclivation". But searching Google scholar for
"evolutionary processes conservation" yields some relevant results.
Only a few of these studies with emphasis on the process based approach have been on orchids and even fewer of them have been on epiphytic orchids. As of yet I haven't found any on the Ghost Orchid.
Maybe right now there's a group of scientists writing a paper that details a process based plan to protect Dendrophylax? And maybe there isn't.
As it stands, until proven otherwise, I've written the best process based plan to protect Dendrophylax. And as many of you have pointed out...I've set the bar really low. So it should be really easy for you to raise it!
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