Paphiopedilum canhii article by Averyanov et al. 2014

I came across the pdf of this article (Mr. Canh as a co-author), so here is the link (should be available to anyone):
http://www.rufford.org/files/www.slipperorchid.org__0.pdf
Many of us know the sad story, but it is an interesting read.

Great share Naoki! Thanks!
It is amazing the damage man can do in a VERY short amount of time. My only hope is that we wipe ourselves out before we destroy EVERYTHING on mother earth.

Sounds like the same story as Mammen's rediscovery of Paph. druryi. Orchid Digest vol 38, No 1 had an interesting story on that. Between over collecting and wildfires it was pretty much wiped out.

It is not possible to eliminate any species of orchid regardless of what some people think unless it is from a small, very remote island area.

"Experts" who declare it is so have just not spent enough time looking for remnants or survivors of collected areas. I know, I've been there. I have collected specimens from several different areas where people who should know have told me they were 'wiped out' by so-and-so collectors.

This includes Borneo, Brazil and different parts of Indonesia, etc.

If you have seen orchid seeds you realize how small they are. In a habitable area they are 'every-where!' Orchid collectors do not spend more than a few hours or days collecting in any area. They cannot possibly find every small plant or plantlet; some do survive.... even when the area is set afire.

Habitat destruction is another thing but it takes years before the accumulative effect will be seen and often other habitats are then found.

If orchid growers would learn to grow their plants properly I would think this will be a more worthwhile concern.

Mr. Canh, I applaud your efforts to show these species and to protect their existence.

Well, I agree with you, Lance, eradicating a species completely is pretty difficult. We don't know where they are hiding (I've done fair amount of field work with plants, and it isn't possible to find all plants). Even with Ivory-billed woodpecker, we are not sure if they are extinct or not.

But we can't deny that drastic reduction in size has a significant effect in their evolutionary trajectory. In population ecology, there is an idea called Allee effect. Once the population size declines below a certain threshold, population can't recover. This is partly that it is difficult to find mate, stochastic fluctuation in environment can cause the extinction by chance, due to the low genetic diversity population can suffer from disease (or they don't have sufficient materials to adapt to future environment). Even if the collectors didn't cause this much damage, the reduction of population size can cause a more rapid accumulation of deleterious mutations over a long time (this is related to something called mutational melt-down), it is likely that overcollecting has influenced the evolutionary future of this species.

I personally don't have much issues with hobbyists collecting plants, and they are probably not illegal in these countries (it's not even illegal in the US if the species isn't under certain protection). But I'm not a big fan of stripping the plants for commercial purpose.

If we grow better and propagate them better (it's not so difficult), it will reduce the collection pressure. But I'm not so optimistic about so-called ex-situ conservation, though.

Ah, well, then let's go and take whatever we find out there.

After years of fighting for the elimination of this type of posts in our 'local' forum (as it is spanish, it is more or less half the world) -
first post: found this from a fallen tree (or fallen from a tree - whatever you like most), can you tell me what it is and how to cultivate?
second post (a week later): I sell divisions of --- easy to grow!

And after years of discussion of the 'poor indio sells orchids for a living'-theory, it is always kind of nice to read a pseudoscientific reasoning why collecting can not threaten the conservation of endangered species.

If only I was a millionaire I'd pay to have the area a natural reserve, it sucks beiing poor!!!!

It is not possible to eradicate a species of plant while in its native habitat. It is not, ’pretty difficult,’… man himself simply can not do it! But if it’s so easy to grow them why are most of the questions on this forum about ‘how to grow’ them? Most growers eventually kill their orchids because they follow bogus advice.

Of course I can deny the preposterous idea that population size reduction can/will have a significant effect on evolution of a species of plant. What kinds of nonsense is that? Show me the proof. (BTW: your reference to ‘Allee effect is to animals (goldfish), not to plants.)

Unless a study of this assumptive theory is based on personal and dedicated field work over a protracted range AND time-frame, with archieved type examples to show for un-impeachable verification, it can not be proven. (Your Ivory-billed Woodpecker a good example) It’s a bogus and usually ‘stupid-based’ process designed simply to produce an education degree or for a grade for a classroom project. The assumption of a ‘mutational melt-down process’ or your theoretic ‘stochastic fluctuation in environment’ (edu-speak) predictions, absent substantive field study is additionally such refuge for non-thinking persons.

This common equation type fault such as, ‘since some Paphiopedilum species are found growing on limestone rocks, therefore all paphs need limestone must be true’ just illustrates the ignorance of many people.

Doesn’t anyone do field research anymore, or even question these often-repeated, un-substantiated and plagiarized opinions?


Secundino: Perhaps you should set up a second forum; one for ‘Truths’ and for your ‘pseudo-science,’ then leave this one for “Fantasy” where reality is forbidden?

If your desire is to train native populations to do ‘the right thing’ at least as far as your own mind is concerned, it would give you a different prospective when you really saw how they actually STRUGGLE to stay alive, on a daily basis. BTDT, and it ain’t pretty.

Troy: A “natural preserve” is never sustainable. Money alone goes mostly to promote political goals; little goes to police/field rangers or to actually provide anything but temporary relief from poachers/native habitants. This is a severely complicated issue which 99.99% of people do not comprehend at all (including the endemics). Investigate WWF if you want proof.

Lance Birk said:

It is not possible to eradicate a species of plant while in its native habitat. It is not, ’pretty difficult,’… man himself simply can not do it!

Click to expand...

With enough money, it is possible. Eradication of disease is much more difficult than plant eradication. But remember about small pox (well there are some in the lab)? It's at the last stretch of Polio. There are some species known from only a few populations even in the US. Nobody would do it, but what is you use herbicide there every year? If you are saying that it is impossible by collecting, then there is some truth about it. But this new statement isn't correct.

Lance Birk said:

Of course I can deny the preposterous idea that population size reduction can/will have a significant effect on evolution of a species of plant. What kinds of nonsense is that? Show me the proof. (BTW: your reference to ‘Allee effect is to animals (goldfish), not to plants.)

Click to expand...

Lance, you probably are not familiar with Allee effects enough, or you are misunderstanding. Any introductory ecology and conservation biology textbooks will have the explanation. There are several mechanisms of Allee effects. From ecological aspect, when the density is too low, pollination become near impossible (pollinator service become highly unreliable below threshold density). It is pretty relevant for insect (or other vector) pollinated plants. If the plant has genetic self-incompatibility, there may not be enough mating types left. In case of gametophytic self-incompatibility like tomato family, you need at least 3 alleles need to be maintained for any reduction to happen. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20528879?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
From genetic perspective, in small populations, inbreeding depression can become severe. There is also mutational meltdown proposed by Lynch:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2410432?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

This is not plant, but relationship between allee effect and eradication is discussed.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1461-0248.2003.00405.x/full

If you are willing to learn, you can find lots of theory, practice, examples of conservation biology with google scholar. Unfortunately, some of the papers are not publicly available (including the ones I linked above) and you need to get them via inter-library loan or something. Also many of these are not written in the way general public, which is unfortunate. I'm not an expert in conservation biology, so I'm not quite capable of explaining in a simple manner, but I can try.

Lance Birk said:

Unless a study of this assumptive theory is based on personal and dedicated field work over a protracted range AND time-frame, with archieved type examples to show for un-impeachable verification, it can not be proven. (Your Ivory-billed Woodpecker a good example) It’s a bogus and usually ‘stupid-based’ process designed simply to produce an education degree or for a grade for a classroom project. The assumption of a ‘mutational melt-down process’ or your theoretic ‘stochastic fluctuation in environment’ (edu-speak) predictions, absent substantive field study is additionally such refuge for non-thinking persons.

Click to expand...

Well, you are way behind in the current state of biology (I mean no offense here, since most people aren't trained in biology, and even people in the field has hard time to keeping up with the progress in the field). In this genomic era, there are lots of tools to look into what happened to the history of species from population genomic type data.

And it is a good point, conservation biology is complex topic since it involves something beyond science such as sociology, cultural studies, education, economics and policy. Even in the US where people aren't starving, educating people about the relevance of biodiversity isn't straight-forward.

The subject Naoki, is over-collecting of orchid plants. Your introduction of irrelevant (animal-based, diseases issues, joint exercises, social, cultural, etc.) theoretical equivalents are not productive in this discussion.

I do not think you have fully understood the meanings of my statements. If you would like to continue this worthwhile exchange of ideas, please re-read my words, stay with the topic about orchid pants in habitat, prepare and target your specific response, correct your spelling errors and then we can continue. I am interested in your response.

Personally, I do not just blindly accept unproven theories or suspicious concepts. Even field work cannot be accepted without certain suspicion, (ask an astronomer to SHOW you Higg’s boson). I hold everyone’s opinions in question, particularly those provided by individuals with more formal education. I continuously find errors in both works and in theories produced by some of the most respected and acknowledged authorities in numerous areas of study. It disturbs me, especially since most people lack such curiosity to want to know truth and they readily cite/copy other’s works, and especially when I myself have done parallel work in same areas and know where their mis-conceptions and mistakes are.

You can label me ‘behind the times,’ but I am a realist, I am not a theorist. I believe in the concept that ‘consensus’ has no part in factual science.

LOL! Not sure "behind the times" is what most would label you.

Lance Birk said:

The subject Naoki, is over-collecting of orchid plants. Your introduction of irrelevant (animal-based, diseases issues, joint exercises, social, cultural, etc.) theoretical equivalents are not productive in this discussion.

Click to expand...

I agreed that it is difficult to directly cause extinction from collection. But there can be a large impact. With some organisms, seed bank or equivalent (dormant spores) can be considered as the hidden population. So finding every single individual to eradicate is difficult (anyone would try to do it). It is not impossible as you mentioned, though. People who can't think conceptually may not see that the process is similar to eradicating disease. You have to make sure that they can't reproduce, and quickly find the last virus existing in this world (some virus can be dormant for long long time just like dormant seeds).

But the question is whether overexploitation influences the future of the species. I pointed out that it is likely. There is many complex interactions in biological systems, so no-one can know the damage for sure. As I already mentioned, drastic reduction in population density can cause extinction. To understand this, you need to learn about the effect of population bottleneck on the genetic diversity and demography. With aid of human, some plants/animals may be able to gradually recover from the lack of genetic diversity.

You probably say that these are just theoretical since you don't have enough background. But you can still try to understand if you are really curious as you claim:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_population
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overexploitation

It is good to be curious. And it is ok to use inefficient methods to understand how things work. If you are really curious, it might be good to open up books or primary literatures. It is never too late. Nothing wrong being critical (indeed, you should), but be objective (not just childish nitpicking which starting grad students fall into). There is no need to waste accumulated knowledge. Some people think that they are smart enough so they can come up with new ideas or understand everything without the basics. I'm not trying to be harsh, here. I have seen several students who had to go through this phase.

It is a similar process as learning plants or orchids. Books have limitation since orchids culture have the "art"-side. But lots of people, including me, used your book to learn the basics. So your book is a part of the accumulated human knowledge. There are lots of accumulated knowledge in biology, too.

As I have lived long enough to see plants disappear - sadly, I see no need to follow your condescending point of view. How can you know where and what I've been working and how can you dare to judge? (If this all is a misunderstanding because of my deficient english, I apologize.)

And - more sadly even - I lived long enough to see indigenous people vanish from earth, and with the people their culture, their knowledge, their languages and their laughter.

Returning to the extinct plants, collecting is mostly not the only form of pressure at one time on a certain species. Rabbits, goats and neophytes pave the way.

I now live in Gran Canaria. Everyone who wants can observe how collectors of rare plants - ¡and insects btw.! - shape the distribution pattern of the collected species.

Naoki, Do not assume you know much about me or my knowledge. I do not assume anything about you other than from this conversation. You did say you read my book,… which book? And precisely, WHAT did you learn from reading it?

I think this is a critical issue since it will tell me quite a lot about who I am conversing with.

Your pointed references to ‘wikipedia’ knowledge tells me you must have either a great knowledge and can differentiate between bogus entries and the multitudes of stuff in wikipedia that I wouldn’t give 2 cents for, and ‘real’ information which might have value in particular circumstances. Your 3 references are just tired, old tripe with some value that are based on assumptive theory that has little to back them up in this discussion. While I’ve been through these considerations in the past it does not follow then that I agree with the same conclusions.

Personally, I don’t see the concise connection you are trying to make with wild grown orchid species in multitudes of diverse environments and how to attach that to a supposed situation of human caused orchid extinction. I do agree that great reductions of individual specimens could (the operative word) have a deleterious effect but unless someone is there to observe that affect, it is simply theory not fact.

I will agree with you that humans could eliminate a species; nuclear bombs could accomplish this, with a mostly direct hit. But do you really believe anyone would pay for / direct / or maintain a years-long process using weed killer to attempt the elimination of some stupid little ‘orchid,’ especially over a gigantic and uncalculable geographical range? (Might happen if it were gold or diamonds (such as were found on the earth surface in the Diamantina range in Brasil).

This is where you lose me….

You are probably aware of the situation in Vietnam recently where the native populations were led to believe that native orchids (mostly Parvisepalum species) were valuable. This led to a ultra-massive ever-collection of those previously ignored specimens. and to the ultimate death of multiple tons of unsold plants. (Averynov, et. al, in several different publications and communications declared the entire Section extinct.) How many times have we all heard this story, those coming from our most respected leaders, Cribb, Averynov, Sanders, ….you get the idea.

So where are those ‘extinct’ plants now……? In our greenhouses since the stories were simply assumptions and B.S.

Think of it like this…. If you carried a goose-down pillow to a windy mountaintop, cut a hole in it then shook all the feathers out until the pillow was empty, …. Do you really believe you could return weeks later then find every single feather and return it to the pillow?

BTW: do you also believe the Russians, the Chinese, etc., do NOT have unrevealed sources of Smallpox, Polio and other deadly diseases stashed away? ….. ( That’s a question! )

Incidentally, I do have a rather comprehensive library of books, magazines, periodicals, reports written in English about orchids. (I also have libraries of psitticines, soft-bills, other kinds of birds, Palmaceae, pyrotechny, cut-flower production, general botany, both Asian and south-African native plants, airplanes, and on and on. They are serious collections and I’ve read them all, numerous times. That accumulated knowledge is what has led me to realize that the only real truth about orchids is that which you yourself go find in places where the orchids live. Everything else is just ‘garbage.’ (…. I’m guessing that you and most other orchid people simply do not understand or believe this because it refutes what every other orchid book written before mine in 1984 professed about how to grow them).

It is why I traveled extensively and then wrote my grower’s manuals and my orchid hunter books. Maybe you can understand now, why I cast a suspicious eye on people who have never ‘been there.’ I’ve been there and seen for myself the realities of jungle environments. Problem now is, and I see it here on this forum, people who buy my books but don’t read them somehow think that the knowledge just magically will transfer to their skull……
And they continue to kill more orchid plants.

So what’s your take on the Ivory-billed wood-banger, Naoki?


Secundo: I do not discount you, and I thank you for your work and your thoughts. I too, have seen what you have seen.

wanted to add this:

Secundo: P.S. In my opinion, the ONLY conclusion that would go toward solving the native-population "problem" of slash-and-burn is education. In my out-of-print book, The Last Orchid Hunter I discuss the idea of, "Schools for Humanity. I think you might agree with it.

I might decide to publish that chapter separately on my web site. If you'd like a copy I can send it to you in e-mail. LMK

On a different but related topic, what of the concept that in the end, the sometimes hysterical desire by some to ''save'' the rare species comes only from human sentimentality? As far as the Planet Earth is concerned, it makes no difference whatsoever whether a species becomes extinct or not.
The planet will adjust just as it always has. Yes it is sad that there are no Passenger pigeons left, but it's only sad to us. The planet doesn't really give a sh*t.

Many millions more species have come and gone before what we see today without the influence of humans, and many more millions will continue to disappear and new ones appear in the future. Isn't it rather arrogant of humans to believe they are the custodians of the planet's natural recourses when the only true motivation for preserving them is not for the sake of the planet but for future self-important humans.

As someone said ''We can't even save ourselves and we wanna save the f**king planet?''

This not to say that we should blatantly plunder and poison what is there until we create a miserable environment but let's also not be too full of ourselves and cry too much over the loss of a species when it will eventually still happen with or without us.

Great post Mike! Buddhists would say it is our attachments that cause us suffering. Mother earth don't give a fat baby's ass because she is not attached. The only constant is evolution, which includes extinction in some cases.