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David M. Wilkinson's The Parable Of Green Mountain

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Article review of The parable of Green Mountain:Ascension Island, ecosystem construction And ecological fitting by David M. Wilkinson Is it possible to create an artificial ecosystem? Does it functions and provide ecosystem services as natural ecosystem does? These are the possible questions that “The parable of Green Mountain: Ascension Island, ecosystem construction and ecological fitting” by David M. Wilkinson answers. Published in journal of biogeography, 2004 the main aim of the paper is to elucidate how ecosystem construction can function and possibly mitigate the challenges of global warming. Green Mountain is a manmade forest located in Ascension Island in South Atlantic Ocean. Ascension was originally uninhabited and considered by early sailors to be little more than an inhospitable heap of cinder cones (Catling and Stroud, n.d.). But later on the scenario changed and now Green Mountain presents itself to be a tropical forest with exotic plants. This is what the parable of Green Mountain is all about. This article starts with the descriptions and the perception of ecological …show more content…

An ecosystem according to him can be constructed and fitted without the need of coevolution. Coevolution occurs when each species in a relationship imposes evolutionary selection on the other but in Green Mountain this lacks. Therefore “Coevolution is not necessary for the development of a complex ecosystem” (Wilkinson, 2004) .Secondly he also presents how creation of a forest system on Green Mountain have increased carbon sequestration in vegetation. On Green Mountain, the change from a fern-dominated system to cloud forest, with many trees of a trunk diameter at breast height (1.5 m) of >0.75 m, will have greatly increased the carbon stored in the vegetation (Wilkinson, 2004). This can be an important aspect in solving the global warming problem as more carbon can be restored through such ecological

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