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points by zdragnar 1 day ago | 0 comments

The article mentions rice paddies, which tend to be almost entirely artificial constructs. It makes sense that if they aren't being maintained anymore, the species that relied on that maintenance would struggle.

Likewise, I don't know if Japan has to deal with wildly aggressive invasive species like I am right now with buckthorn, but there's lots of plants that will simply choke out most others and aren't very beneficial. If nobody's around anymore and they were actively grooming the pastures and such, that will also put a ton of pressure on previously flourishing species.

[–] gorpy7 1 day ago

there is a phrase that reasonates with me and it goes something like this- all symbiotic relationships were once parasitic. There are plenty of caveats but i think the time regime is something we don’t really respect given that some of these processes are always happening at almost always on a timeframe that we don’t appreciate- naturally, being so briefly here.

[–] Tade0 1 day ago

I believe the Japanese Knotweed fulfills that function.