Frank Boensch

Professor Mary Power, Assistant Professor Albert Ruhi

Integrative Biology 171

April 23rd 2020

(4/7): Coastlines facing sea level rise should prioritize soft engineering solutions (i.e.,

restoration of coastal marshes and floodplain forests

In the debate about coastline soft armouring and floodplain forests, a variety of opinions

and benefits were shared from both sides of the matter. From the standpoint of the group that was

against the prioritization of soft engineering solutions, soft engineering solutions are under

researched in terms of their long term effect. In addition, these soft engineering solutions take a

lot of time to come to fruition: something we may not have time for. For example, the city of

Kivalina has to be moved due to erosion; no long term solution is quick enough to help those

citizens. In some cases, we also need to consider who these events are affecting. In island

communities in Georgia, it was found that properties that were owned by the less wealthy were

more likely to be in areas that could be heavily damaged by floods. By asking people to move,

they lose a home and a heritage, therefore if hard armouring solutions are the most effective for

the people, we should prioritize towards that. The side arguing for soft engineering solutions

pointed out that wetland habitats are a major key to our society as we know it. Our society’s

actions such as over fertilization have been directly negatively impacting these ecosystems that

have been protecting against sea level rise and flooding (Deegan 2012). While these damaged

wetlands can be restored if our destructive tendencies are reduced (Schmitz 2012), it is predicted,
even under optimistic models, that these marshes will be overrun by sea level rise in the near

future (Crosby 2016). Hard armouring solutions such as dams may not completely solve the

issue, but instead cause future habitat degradation. Soft and hybrid armouring solutions instead

address the issues of environmental events such as extreme weather or sea level rise, but also

provide positive ecosystem services. As an example, salt marshes are able to decrease harmful

nutrients as well as sequestering carbon.

My final position on this issue is that we need to prioritize whatever ensures the most

safety of individuals affected by the issues that the armouring solutions were intending to benefit

while keeping in mind the lasting effects that the solution itself will have on the surroundings.

Many times, I believe this outlook would result in many hybrid stabilizations. As Bilkovic and

Mitchell (2013) found, hybrid stabilizations can both provide stabilizing structural integrity for

landscapes experiencing issues from the lack of shoreline protection and a revitalization of

coastal habitat. Though like many soft/hybrid solutions, a potential negative of this strategy is

that the long term effects of the solution haven’t been studied as much as other hard armouring

solutions. In addition as discovered by Bilkovic and Mitchell, the specific hybrid stabilizations

often used can cause a loss of benthic productivity, coarser sediment, and lower carbon and

nitrogen concentrations. With all of this considered, I believe that the stone-still and marsh

hybrid stabilizations should be used in areas where loss of complex biogenic habitat has

happened (as found to be effective) and the research of similar hybrid solutions to benefit

varying ecosystems should be prioritized. Research like this has already been started on things

like the Sand Engine, a soft engineering approach in the Netherlands that could possibly help the

issue globally (Stive 2013).

(4/9): Invasive species eradication should be a management priority

In the debate about invasive species eradication, the debaters on the side of prioritizing

eradication pointed out the negatives of invasives. A major element of global change, invasive

species contribute to biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. In freshwater environments,

invasive species have been found to reduce aquatic species abundance (Gallardo 2016). The

issue of invasive species is so bad that a single highly invasive species has the ability to

completely change the environment. A single grass being introduced can change fire regimes

leading to ecosystem transformation and invasive insects can alter carbon and nutrient cycles of

the habitat. In addition, it has been said that invasive species are the leading cause of animal

extinctions (Clavero 2005). These effects are not only important to the species living in them, but

are important to humans financially. Invasive species are estimated to cost the United States 120

billion dollars (USD) in a single year alone in damages, more costly than natural disasters that

are much more in the public eye (Ricciardi 2011). Eradication offers a chance to try and control

these deadly invasive species. Increasing advances in both invasive species monitoring, analysis

as well as management techniques like pathway vector and introduction vector proactive limiting

measures can be a successful way to tackle an invasion.. The debaters on the side of the opinion

that invasive species eradication shouldn’t be prioritized pointed out that the proactive measure

brings a plethora of issues. For one, quite a few non-native species have been believed to benefit

the environment that they begin to colonize in. For example many of the European introduced

worms have been seen to enrich the soil that they live in. In addition, a large number of invasive

species are as prominent as they are today because they were purposely introduced by humans

for some beneficial trait they possess. One may say that invasive species are actually an
important part of our everyday life due to this. In addition, invasive species may also fill in for an

empty spot in a food web, keeping the web from collapsing all together. Instead of eradication,

this side of the argument mentioned that prioritizing invasive species monitoring would be more

beneficial.

My final position on this issue is that scientists should take advantage of increasing

technology in tracking, analysis, and classification of invasive species in order to make more

knowledgeable decisions on what to do about each specific case. As mentioned by Pysek and

Richardson (2010), research in improvement in understanding and remote sensing have allowed

robust protocols that can be successfully applied to the creation of surveying plans to increase

the probability that a measurement tactic is successful. By aggressively monitoring introduction

pathways, governments can introduce regulations to decrease the likelihood of a biological

invasion. While our understanding of the mechanisms of biological invasions is collectively

strong, our knowledge of measuring impact of a species is unrefined. Additional attention should

be paid on how we can quantify the impact that a species has on the environment. From there in

combination to an overall increase in monitoring, we can begin to create predictive models that

can tell us when aggressive action should be taken to eradicate an invasive species. Marchetti, et.

al (2004) have attempted in species profiling in terms of possible invasiveness but as displayed

in the article there is still a lot of work to be done due to the variable characteristics that can

affect invasiveness. Due to the variable nature of invasive species eradication efforts,

eradication may not be the best strategy in all cases. Oftentimes the species can come back in a

second wave, or elimination can take away a producer for an ecosystem. Therefore we should

use eradication when necessary, but only when science says it is the right strategy to apply.
(4/14): Flow regimes in regulated rivers: We should engineer for the future, not try to

restore the past

Balancing water needs of people with water needs of ecosystems is an integral part of

ecosystem management in the modern day. This debate tackled the argument of whether or not

we should engineer rivers to be overall more “positive” on paper in terms of human benefits as

well as ecosystem benefits or we should engineer flows to be as close to past flows before human

intervention. The side preferring restorative engineering/limiting modification to flow regimes

argues that natural flows play a large role in biotic diversity through its impact on the physical

aspect of an ecosystem. Modification of the physical environment of an ecosystem causes

organisms to have to “rebrand” to adapt to the new environment. For example as these flows

shape river channels and riverbed composition, the distribution, abundance, and diversity of

these aquatic organisms change. In addition, it is important to note that the natural flows have

been sustaining fishing yield for many years. Changing what is already working can be highly

detrimental to communities that have relied on the flow for years. The side of the debate that was

for engineering flows for the future regardless of how they differ from the natural flow argue that

traditional flows may not be feasible to support our current consumptive use. Dams may alter the

natural flow of rivers, but they also allow us to design flows by careful planning of their

downstream release of water. A study in the San Juan River, found that designer flows

outperformed mimicry of the natural flow in terms of native fish performance as opposed to

non-native fish. In addition, the designer flows were able to meet society’s water needs better

than natural flow mimicry (Chen 2017) . Adding to the benefits of designer flows, hydropower
dams allow for production of low cost, low emissions energy. In 1998 hydropower generated

almost 20% of the world's energy production: a figure that has surely gone up (Koch 2002).

I believe that designer flows certainly have not had nearly as much research as necessary

to consider them a superior alternative to natural flows in most cases. The effects of altering the

flow of an ecosystem can be so subtle at first, but lead to drastic changes. I don’t think building

flow altering structures, then changing them based off of the realized effect on the individual

ecosystem is a smart way to manage flows. Once these human-made structures are built, flow

releases will never be the same due to the capacity that will be held by the structure (Glenn

2017), and the funds used to build the structure will be either wasted and/or harming the habitat.

Before building more flow altering structures, we must do more experimental manipulation of

existing ones to better understand the impact. As mentioned by (Konrad 2011), modeling can be

integrated with experiments to analyze ecological responses. While significant modeling work

was attempted by Shafrotth et. al (2010) in order to investigate relationships between flows,

geographic and biotic responses on the Bill Williams River, it was noted many organizations do

not have the same availability of funds and time to develop individual models for specific

situations. In a perfect world, the best response for this issue would be managing our electricity

and water needs. By advancing science towards more efficient ways to gather energy, we can

stop relying on hydropower. In addition, if we stopped commercial abusers of water, reservoirs

would be less necessary in order to supplement our society’s enormous water hunger. Though

this strategy would be extremely hard to come to fruition, this is one of the few that would

positively impact fragile environments. Human’s can go without consuming as much energy:

once these habitats are lost due to altered flows, they may never come back to the way they were.
(4/16): Gene drives should be used as a form of biocontrol against aquatic insects that

vector human disease

Gene drives are a naturally occurring phenomenon. Using gene drives, organisms are

designed to drive their genes into the population in order to increase the number of gene drive

organisms. The goal of gene drive organisms is to spread a specific modification through a wild

population for a variety of reasons (Heitman 2016). The side of the debate in favor of the use of

gene drives argues that the benefits of gene drives make prohibiting the research unjustifiable.

Gene drives could be used for things like combating malaria and alter/eliminate other disease

carrying insects including ticks and sandflies (Kahn 2020). In addition they could be used to

protect endangered species and agriculture. The only way to tell if something like this works is to

try it and carefully observe the impact. On the against gene drives side of the argument, they

argue that it has many potential threats. One of these threats is that the unintended release of

organisms from labs into nature. Gene drives give scientists the power to significantly edit

organisms to make them more beneficial to society, but it also gives them the power to make

organisms that could be harmful for our society. Another worry is that gene drive traits can be

spread across non-target species, having ecosystem impacts (Oye 2014). For example insecticide

resistance did jam across a mosquito species, showing something that could be a major risk

towards wiping out whole species. Another point is that the environment that we live in has so

many factors at play that no one can really say the effect that wiping out a vital organism could

have on the environment before it actually happens.

In my opinion, the power of gene drives is so strong that it would be nearly impossible

for all of the science community to stop working on it. Therefore it is more of a question on how
we can/should regulate the use of these gene drives. For one, I think it would be safest to focus

on gene drive projects that don’t eradicate species as a whole but simply alter them in order to

benefit us as a society. Once a disease is eradicated there is no turning back, therefore sticking to

more novel beginnings would be extremely beneficial for learning the technology. For example

as mentioned in the Lynch, Boots article (2016), instead of eradicating mosquitoes as a whole we

can increase the efficacy of an already existing repellent in order to evolve the repellents and

help humans control the spread of diseases. Even once the technology is completely figured out,

it is imperative we completely analyze the effects of the use of gene drives for every single use.

As Harald Meimberg mentions in the Giese et al. paper (2019), one must consider the protection

goals: considering all facets of human well being, biodiversity, and protected goods. Before the

widespread use of gene drives, scientists must be aware and moderate the public perception.

While the use of gene drives is viewed overall in a positive light, any misuse and mistakes in the

beginning could cause it to be looked down on indefinitely due to fear (Alphey 2016).
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Chen, W., & Olden, J. D. (2017). Designing flows to resolve human and environmental water

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