Lost Plants

Abstract

Zoologists have long anguished over the recognItIOn and significance of strays, lost migrants, dispersing juveniles, rafting voyagers, etc. Does a migrating bird that is 1000 km from its species' established migration route represent a potential colonist , a victim of strong winds, faulty navigation physiology , or a remnant of a population that has been decimated by recent ecological processes? Are the insects that invade northern croplands each summer, only to be extinguished by winter, a part of a normal natural history being selected for, or is their invasion merely the serendipitous consequence of traits with adaptive significances that are quite unrelated to an invasive natural history? Is a grassland rodent that is encountered in a rainforest treefall part of a breeding population or is it as dead as is a physiologically living rainforest tree seed that is washed up on a Pacific island beach?