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In
biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or
ecosystem
An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...
if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often popularised as "with no human intervention") during
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
.
The term is equivalent to the concept of indigenous or autochthonous species.
[ Every wild organism (as opposed to a ]domesticated
Domestication is a sustained multi-generational relationship in which humans assume a significant degree of control over the reproduction and care of another group of organisms to secure a more predictable supply of resources from that group. A ...
organism) is known as an introduced species
An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there ...
within the regions where it was anthropogenically introduced. If an introduced species causes substantial ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage, it may be regarded more specifically as an invasive species.
The notion of nativity is often a blurred concept, as it is a function of both time and political boundaries.[ Over long periods of time, local conditions and migratory patterns are constantly changing as ]tectonic plates
Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large ...
move, join, and split. Natural climate change (which is much slower than human-caused climate change) changes sea level, ice cover, temperature, and rainfall, driving direct changes in habitability and indirect changes through the presence of predators, competitors, food sources, and even oxygen levels. Species do naturally appear, reproduce, and endure, or become extinct, and their distribution is rarely static or confined to a particular geographic location. Moreover, the distinction between native and non-native as being tied to a local occurrence during historical times has been criticised as lacking perspective, and a case was made for more graded categorisations such as that of ''prehistoric natives'', which occurred in a region during prehistory but have since suffered local extinction there due to human involvement.
A native species in a location is not necessarily also endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
to that location. Endemic species are ''exclusively'' found in a particular place.[ A native species may occur in areas other than the one under consideration. The terms endemic and native also do not imply that an organism necessarily first originated or ]evolved
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
where it is currently found.[
]
Ecology
Native species form communities and biological interaction
In ecology, a biological interaction is the effect that a pair of organisms living together in a community have on each other. They can be either of the same species (intraspecific interactions), or of different species (interspecific interaction ...
s with other specific flora, fauna, fungi, and other organisms. For example, some plant species can only reproduce with a continued mutualistic interaction with a certain animal pollinator, and the pollinating animal may also be dependent on that plant species for a food source. Many species have adapted to very limited, unusual, or harsh conditions, such as cold climates or frequent wildfire
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire ...
s. Others can live in diverse areas or adapt well to different surroundings.
Human impact and intervention
The diversity of species across many parts of the world exists only because bioregion
A bioregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a biogeographic realm, but larger than an ecoregion or an ecosystem, in the World Wide Fund for Nature classification scheme. There is also an attempt to use the ...
s are separated by barriers, particularly large river
A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...
s, sea
The sea, connected as the world ocean or simply the ocean, is the body of salty water that covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. The word sea is also used to denote second-order sections of the sea, such as the Mediterranean Sea, ...
s, ocean
The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wo ...
s, mountain
A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited Summit (topography), summit area, and ...
s, and desert
A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About on ...
s. Humans can introduce species that have never met in their evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
ary history, on varying time scales ranging from days to decades (Long, 1981; Vermeij, 1991). Humans are moving species across the globe at an unprecedented rate. Those working to address invasive species view this as an increased risk to native species.
As humans introduce species to new locations for cultivation, or transport them by accident, some of them may become invasive species, damaging native communities. Invasive species can have profound effects on ecosystems by changing ecosystem structure, function, species abundance, and community composition. Besides ecological damage, these species can also damage agriculture, infrastructure, and cultural assets. Government agencies and environmental groups are directing increasing resources to addressing these species.
Conservation and advocacy
Native plant organizations such as the Society for Ecological Restoration The Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) is a conservation organization based in the United States, supporting a "global community of restoration professionals that includes researchers, practitioners, decision-makers, and community leaders". Th ...
, native plant societies, Wild Ones, and Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin is the state botanical garden and arboretum of Texas. The center features more than 900 species of native Texas plants in both garden and natural settings and is hom ...
encourage the use of native plants. The identification of local remnant natural area
A remnant natural area, also known as remnant habitat, is an ecological community containing native flora and fauna that has not been significantly disturbed by destructive activities such as agriculture, logging, pollution, development, fire supp ...
s provides a basis for this work.
Many books have been written on the subject of planting native plants in home gardens. The use of cultivar
A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture ...
s derived from native species is a widely disputed practice among native plant advocates.
Importance of nativity in conservation
When ecological restoration
Restoration ecology is the scientific study supporting the practice of ecological restoration, which is the practice of renewing and restoring degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems and habitats in the environment by active human interrupt ...
projects are undertaken to restore a native ecological system disturbed by economic development or other events, they may be historically inaccurate, incomplete, or pay little or no attention to ecotype accuracy or type conversions. They may fail to restore the original ecological system by overlooking the basics of remediation. Attention paid to the historical distribution of native species is a crucial first step to ensure the ecological integrity of the project. For example, to prevent erosion of the recontoured sand dunes at the western edge of the Los Angeles International Airport in 1975, landscaper
Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including the following:
# Living elements, such as flora or fauna; or what is commonly called gardening, the art and craft of growing plants with a goal ...
s stabilized the backdunes with a "natural" seed mix (Mattoni 1989a). Unfortunately, the seed mix was representative of coastal sage scrub
Coastal sage scrub, also known as coastal scrub, CSS, or soft chaparral, is a low scrubland plant community of the California coastal sage and chaparral subecoregion, found in coastal California and northwestern coastal Baja California. It is ...
, an exogenous plant community, instead of the native dune scrub community. As a result, the El Segundo blue butterfly
The El Segundo blue (''Euphilotes battoides allyni'') is a rare subspecies of the square-spotted blue butterfly. It is endemic to a small dune ecosystem in Southern California that used to be a community called Palisades del Rey, close to the ...
''(Euphilotes battoides allyni)'' became an endangered species. The El Segundo blue butterfly population, which had once extended over 3200 acres along the coastal dunes from Ocean Park to Malaga Cove in Palos Verdes
The Palos Verdes Peninsula (''Palos Verdes'', Spanish for "Green Sticks") is a landform and a geographic sub-region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, within southwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. Located in the S ...
, began to recover when the invasive California buckwheat
''Eriogonum fasciculatum'' is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common names California buckwheat and flat-topped buckwheat. Characterized by small, white and pink flower clusters that give off a cottony effect, this species grows vari ...
''(Eriogonum fasciculatum)'' was uprooted so that the butterflies' original native plant host, the dune buckwheat
''Eriogonum parvifolium'' is a species in the family Polygonaceae that occurs on dune formations in the coastal area of Central and Southern California. This evergreen shrub grows to a height of 30 to 100 centimeters with a spread of approxi ...
''(Eriogonum parvifolium),'' could regain some of its lost habitat.
See also
*Introduced species
An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there ...
References
Further reading
* {{cite book , title=Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction , author=Chris D. Thomas , publisher=PublicAffairs , year=2017 , isbn=978-1610397278
Biogeography
Ecological restoration
Ecology terminology
Habitat