Rambunctious Garden Quotes

“As the Earth responds to the changes we humans have made, does it make sense to destroy ecosystems that thrive under the new conditions? As Lugo says, “This is nature’s response to what we have done to it.” Novel ecosystems may be our best hope for the future, as their components adapt to the human-dominated world using the time-tested method of natural selection. Could we hope to do any better than nature in managing and arranging our natural world for a warmer, more populous future?”
― Emma Marris, Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World

“As a result, the distribution maps for plant species don't look the same from interglacial to interglacial. Each climate change creates a new map, with new communities of species living together. Whole suites of species do not pick up en masse and decorously tiptoe south, making sure to keep together. It is rather mad scramble - albeit in geological time.

Some of today's ecosystems have not fully bounced back from the last glaciation. One analysis suggested that thirty-six of fifty-five European tree species studied had still not spread out to the edges of their possible ranges. Beech trees are notoriously poky. In North-America they are still moving west across Michigan's Upper Peninsula.”
― Emma Marris, Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World