Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

livescience.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 238 posts

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#41

Post by ForOldHack »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #31
sushibowl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, the science on this is far from settled. There is no consensus and the evidence in favor of a trophic cascade in Yellowstone came predominantly from two studies done by the same team/person. Later studies failed to replicate findings. Do wolves fix ecosystems? CSU study debunks claims about Yellowstone reintroduction https://eu.coloradoan.com/story/news/2024/02/09/colorado-sta... A good story: Media…

Both links are paywalled so I can't comment on what they say (positive or negative). That said, I did attend an interesting lecture about systems that looks a bit at the Yellowstone as a cautionary tale about extrapolating how a system works from observational data. Basically it came down to there are secondary and tertiary effects from systems variables that express visibly differently depending on both the magnitud…

Brilliant observation. Dynamic systems like this are rarely a cut-n-done. Like the study of ozone, with it's seven counter intuitive steps, it is all an evolving study.

It also proves the worth of just simple studies over a long period of time. Science used to do a lot of that, and it was very interesting, as many appear on hacker news, but now it seems that cut-n-done grab more popular news.

It also bears the question: what longitudinal studies are popular here besides this one, and retro computing?

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#42

Post by tossandthrow »

declan_roberts wrote: post #38

This is great news! Why doesn't fish and game just increase the number of elk tags they sell? There are multiple ways to reduce the elk population.

Based on another commenter it appears that it is not merely about the number of elk, but likely also how they act.

But is see This has a human imperialist reaction: why don't we just micro manage everything!

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#43

Post by Incipient »

throw83944i888 wrote: post #37
owenthejumper wrote: post #5

It's incredible how much damage we have done to ourselves in the past 250 years, and how much effort do we now need to spend to undo that damage

> how much effort do we now need to spend to undo that Moving a few wolfs, I would hardly call that effort! Stopping regulations and allowing some hunters in Yellowstone would have similar effects! It is more like morons, who do not understand biology are in goverment! Overprotection allowed elk overpopulation!

For clarification, I wouldn't say stopping regulation. It should be "updating regulation" - either increasing hunt quotas, or having an 'open season' time.

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#44

Post by bmacho »

quickthrowman wrote: post #35
hagbard_c wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's incredible how much good we have done to ourselves in the past 250 years, and how much good we can do in the now and the future.

Are you really promoting the philosophy of Leibnizian Optimism in 2025? I suggest reading Candide by Voltaire, first published 266 years as a critique to the philosophy you are currently espousing.

  People:   "If God, then why bad?"[0]
  Leibniz:  "God and bad can coexist. E.g. we live in the best possible world."[1]
  Voltaire: "Here's a depiction of some fictional bad."
I don't think Voltaire engaged meaningfully with Leibniz's argument. (I think that Leibniz is simply right tho, in the mathematical sense, so there isn't much room for Voltaire anyway.)

[0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil

[1] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_of_all_possible_worlds

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#46

Post by ricardobeat »

sushibowl wrote: post #29
mkw5053 wrote: post #23

It's amazing the impact that the reintroduction has had. On a recent winter trip there I also learned that the reintroduction literally moved rivers [1]: - Elk quit loitering along streams, so willow and cottonwood shot up, anchoring soil and narrowing channels. - The new woody growth gave beavers lumber; their colonies jumped from one in 1996 to a dozen within fifteen years, raising water tables and rebuilding wetla…

As far as I know, the science on this is far from settled. There is no consensus and the evidence in favor of a trophic cascade in Yellowstone came predominantly from two studies done by the same team/person. Later studies failed to replicate findings. Do wolves fix ecosystems? CSU study debunks claims about Yellowstone reintroduction https://eu.coloradoan.com/story/news/2024/02/09/colorado-sta... A good story: Media…

That looks like a quite biased interpretation of these studies. Direct quotes:

> The average height of willows in fenced and dammed plots 20 years after the initiation of the experiment exceeded 350 cm, while the height in controls averaged less than 180 cm

> This suggests that well watered plants could tolerate relatively heavy browsing. It also shows that the absence of engineering by beavers suppressed willow growth to a similar extent as did browsing

They posit that the growth in control groups not matching the fenced areas is evidence of wolves reintroduction not having the effects they are said to have. It is a pretty unconvincing argument since there are so many other variables involved. They also prove that IF the wolves have indirectly lead to either the return of beaver dams, or reduced elk browsing, there is undoubtedly an impact in tree growth, which is a positive result regardless.

Their theory that things will never return to their original state, and instead will settle into a new alternate equilibrium is probably correct, but does not seem like the definitive blow to the wolf theory that it’s made out to be.

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#47

Post by thfuran »

quickthrowman wrote: post #35
hagbard_c wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's incredible how much good we have done to ourselves in the past 250 years, and how much good we can do in the now and the future.

Are you really promoting the philosophy of Leibnizian Optimism in 2025? I suggest reading Candide by Voltaire, first published 266 years as a critique to the philosophy you are currently espousing.

I don’t really see how you got there from what they actually said.

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#48

Post by GlibMonkeyDeath »

sushibowl wrote: post #29
mkw5053 wrote: post #23

It's amazing the impact that the reintroduction has had. On a recent winter trip there I also learned that the reintroduction literally moved rivers [1]: - Elk quit loitering along streams, so willow and cottonwood shot up, anchoring soil and narrowing channels. - The new woody growth gave beavers lumber; their colonies jumped from one in 1996 to a dozen within fifteen years, raising water tables and rebuilding wetla…

As far as I know, the science on this is far from settled. There is no consensus and the evidence in favor of a trophic cascade in Yellowstone came predominantly from two studies done by the same team/person. Later studies failed to replicate findings. Do wolves fix ecosystems? CSU study debunks claims about Yellowstone reintroduction https://eu.coloradoan.com/story/news/2024/02/09/colorado-sta... A good story: Media…

And this one from the National Park Service web site, funded by NSF:

https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/ys-24-1-the-challenge-of-unde...

TL;DR - the observed reduction of the elk herd correlated with wolf introduction, but also with an increase in cougars, grizzly bears, and even bison, all of which either reduce or compete with elk. Human hunting also added pressure, but that has been limited as the herd size reduced. It is complicated.

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#49

Post by ForOldHack »

asacrowflies wrote: post #4
incomingpain wrote: post #2

They only moved few dozen wolves, over 1000km from their homes, which is not going to have any significant consequences. Even today there's only about 100 wolves in the park? 2,200,000 acres, with 100 wolves. Then they've made the claim that those 100 wolves in 2.2million acres has resulted in plants and fish returning? As opposed to their efforts doing nothing at all?

The science is pretty clear on this Im not sure what you exactly are criticizing other than you don't like the vibes or vaguely incredulous? It doesn't take many wolves to change the behavior of nearly every herbivore they prey upon. Which then changes the river bank erosion. Which causes hundreds of more species to change behavior.... Trophic Cascades are not really up for debate .

No one here used apex predictor, but many described it. The science is clear that we need to study this more, much more. We only know a brief glimpse on terms of geologic time.

The effect on quaking aspens in Pardo is also something we need to study long term. Are the two related?

Re: Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

#50

Post by troupo »

GlibMonkeyDeath wrote: post #48
sushibowl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, the science on this is far from settled. There is no consensus and the evidence in favor of a trophic cascade in Yellowstone came predominantly from two studies done by the same team/person. Later studies failed to replicate findings. Do wolves fix ecosystems? CSU study debunks claims about Yellowstone reintroduction https://eu.coloradoan.com/story/news/2024/02/09/colorado-sta... A good story: Media…

And this one from the National Park Service web site, funded by NSF: https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/ys-24-1-the-challenge-of-unde... TL;DR - the observed reduction of the elk herd correlated with wolf introduction, but also with an increase in cougars, grizzly bears, and even bison, all of which either reduce or compete with elk. Human hunting also added pressure, but that has been limited as the herd size reduced. I…

I also read it as "biodiversity is a good thing"
Post reply on HN