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How do!

Another thought that’s been rattling around in my head as I once again rewatch early episodes of The Walking Dead.

And it’s not about zombies, but what the impact of what such a mass semi-extinction of mankind would do to/for the world.

We kind of saw some of this during the Plague Year. Stuff like the canals of Venice clearing as the lack of movement allowed the mud to settle etc. And from other sources we know nature is no slouch when it comes to over growing cities.

But what about the wider biome? At present, there’s 8 billion of us smelly humans clogging up the planet. If a significant chunk of that population suddenly snuffed it in a short period, that’s a lot of bodies left rotting. Sure in the early days cremation and burials would deal with some of the leftovers, but it would soon become a hopeless task.

Which means Mother Nature would do what it does best, and take care of matters. Carrion species, bugs and insects would have a glut of food, increasing their survival and breeding rates. That in turn would create a greater food source for smaller critters, like mice, rats, birds etc. And as a result so on and so forth up the food chain, at least in areas of currently high human population density. Places in the middle of nowhere may see a less dramatic shift.

We’d also need to consider livestock. Those species which have so long been domesticated and selectively bred for humanity’s table. What does the science (if such a science exists) predict would happen? And I guess this would include pets, particularly ones not typically kept in a cage or tank, like Cats and Dogs.

Has there been existing modelling done mostly out of curiosity? I mean, any boom in insect population would, by my incredibly limited understanding, be quite short lived, because the glut of food sources wouldn’t be commonly replicated. But without anyone crop spraying or otherwise trying to deal with them, there would be a swing to that roundabout.

Of particular interest would be books in fairly plain English on the same matter.

Interesting question with a lot of ramifications.

The BBC aired a documentary about the end of the human race, and what would happen with our civilization on the aftermath a few years ago. If I recall the name I'll link it to you.

M.

Edit: That will teach me to trust my memory, it was not on the BBC.
Two more or less recent documentaries talked about humanity suddenly going belly up. Life After People for the History Channel, and Aftermath for National Geographic.

I don’t think that human biomass makes up a significant proportion of the Earth’s biomass, even though there are about 8 billion of us. Livestock and crops make up significantly more. When you consider the biomass of things like earthworms and termites we’re just not that significant.

Yes, billions of dead humans would have an effect, especially in cities. I think whatever effect it had would be pretty short lived though. I think nature would be more concerned about all those nuclear power plants that nobody is maintaining.

There's an older series on this called "Life After People" that I thought was interesting at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_After_People

There aren't that many nuclear plants and Chernobyl has already proven that nature is more than capable of enduring and thriving in spite of nuclear radiation.

Around here I'd place bets the stray cat and dog population would explode along with small prey. I'd think we'd see an increase in raptors, and raptor sizes, as well as with deer, and coyotes. Further west Wild Mustangs will reclaim their former territories.

If some hogs found their way loose, particularly the heritage breeds I'm sure they'd become feral in no time.

Chickens would be another, thinking about the people who free range their birds. I'm sure cold hardy chickens will flourish if given opportunity. So had domestic fowl of all types reintroducing themselves to the wild. Geese are very hardy and would probably radiate out into multiple new species, and even cross with wild Canadian geese.

The American Bison might gain a foothold, but has a long way to go before it becomes king of the plains again.

Geese will suffer without humans. They thrive on our mowed lawns that give them easy access to food and open sight lines for predators, many of which we keep culled as well. A lot of dog breeds, mainly those stupid small ones, will vanish practically overnight. Deer probably see an initial surge without hunters and cars, but then as the wolves and cougars are free to move back in will have their numbers brought back down to manageable levels. Cats will boom, they will love it without us around to impede them. In general I think most prey will see an initial surge before the predators we kept in check reestablish themselves and things find a natural balance.

Weather patterns will change. The days after September 11, when basically flights were shut down, were a couple of degrees warmer during the day and cooler during the night, because there was less cloud cover. Apparently aircraft contrails promote cloud formation.

Some interesting info regarding the biomass:
https://ourworldindata.org/life-on-earth#:~:text=humans%20account%20for%20just%200.01%25%20of%20biomass%2C%20so,the%20visualization%20below%20will%20open%20it%20in%20higher-resolution%5D.
Basically: animals in general make up a pretty low percentage of biomass compared to plants, fungi and bacteria, but within the animals our influence is bigger than one would expect.
2.5 % of animal biomass + 4% for our livestock. To compare that all wild mammals only make up 0.3% or in other words: we outweight all wild mamals by about 8fold.

Looking at central europe: it would be interesting to see what would happen here as the ground is really fertile but a very large percentage is cultivated. It would take decades, maybe centuries, but I assume a large forest would spread again. Also by removing humans I assume the ecosystem in the seas would change drastically as one very active apex predator is removed. Various species of fish would rather suddenly explode, especially those who despite intensive fishing somehow manage to at least remain more or less stable in numbers (stuff like Salmon, sardines, makreles, codfish...)

On the Dog/Cat front I assume they would take up the role of predators upon reintroduction in the wild, but a large proportion of less competetive breeds would soon die out. I have a hard time imagining poodles or chiuwawaha survive when they have to compete with huskies and rotweilers. On the other hand the heaviest dog breeds like mastifs and the like would either have to organize in packs big enough to hunt a lot of food in short time or starve.

In the UK right now Deer populations are doing very nicely and are thriving as they rather like farmland to eat if they aren't heavily culled.



As for what happens it really depends on what timescale you're looking at.


For starters one important thing to realise is that life does NOT balance on an annual cycle. Many species exhibit both annual cycles of population along with generational ones. Deer in Yellowstone, based on hunt records, are shown to have long running rises and falls of population which was shown when wolves were brought back at the same time deer populations were in a dip - so wolves got the blame even though historical hunt record data shows that the deer population naturally go up and down over long spans.

Part of the issue here is that we only have accurate population records over a very short span of time and everything else is proxy data and then theory.



I would expect initial booms and falls of populations all over the place in the early years of humanity vanishing, esp if humanity vanished in one big go. From billions to nothing would cause dramatic population swings all over the place. Species that sit alongside us and do well off humanity might surge initially and then crash when easy food supplies run out; that crashing period might result in migration and cause other populations to come under stress. A swarm of rats from London suddenly running out of food could cripple the surrounding countryside and cause a short term famine of wild food that will impact many other species.

Captive animals would, if humanity died off fast, likely end up either being trapped within homes/cages and die; or if released would either die out on their own due to reduced chance to survive (esp for those species that have been bred in such a way that they have very damaged mobility or physical performance - even those mega-hyper big cows and cattle could suffer without human aid).

However you could easily also see zoo species or even bred species establishing themselves in certain regions. The UK, for example, has very no native predator species bigger than a badger so ample space for dogs to fill that niche or escaped/released wolf/wildcats if they could establish themselves.


Genetic data suggests that the Cheetah we have today are all related to a very tiny pool of breeders in the past. So in the wild utterly tiny breeding populations can survive, even if they can have issues with inbreeding and genetic weakness as a result; which can take a very long time to breed out and requires population expansion.


Once you start looking at decades to centuries after humanity things change again.


I think one big thing to realise is that in nature the concept of balance isn't a case of everything being the same every year. It's a case of constant adjustment and shifting populations and species as a result of constantly changing conditions. The balance is more a long term aspect and often means stepping back as many species will become extinct, esp very niche groups. Of course new niche ones will arise at the same time; which is the big difference to a natural balance and the situation we have now where species are being rendered extinct not through competition and being out-competed but through habitat loss and hunting/predation/culling etc... Where humanity ensures that there is no niche left for another subspecies or species to fill; or where the only gap is rat-sized. Ergo for species that already live alongside us in an effective manner.


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 Pyroalchi wrote:

Looking at central europe: it would be interesting to see what would happen here as the ground is really fertile but a very large percentage is cultivated. It would take decades, maybe centuries, but I assume a large forest would spread again. Also by removing humans I assume the ecosystem in the seas would change drastically as one very active apex predator is removed. Various species of fish would rather suddenly explode, especially those who despite intensive fishing somehow manage to at least remain more or less stable in numbers (stuff like Salmon, sardines, makreles, codfish...)

Fun fact - savannah isn't even a natural ecosystem and once we stopped native people burning the encroaching woodland the savannah systems started to break down as nature keeps trying to succeed toward woodland/forest or other systems. The entire savannah system is basically human made. Which is one element to consider in that many of the "natural" ecosystems we look at today can often be the direct creation of humanity. So some wild species living in wild ecosystems only thrive because the whole system is based on human action and land modification.

The difference being that those practices were setup over hundreds/thousands of years of fairly stable activity and roughly stable population or at least slower growing populations. So there was time for balance, but also those species that were lost due to the change were lost so far back we don't worry about them today.

Today the changes are insanely fast, very big swings and we are right there so we see all the species that are lost in that change.

On the biomass? My concern is about the world in general suddenly dealing with an increase in corpses, and all the opportunities untreated corpses offer nature.

I do wonder if urban critters might be generally adverse to scoffing dead human, simply due to them being somewhat adapted to our environment, and generally giving us a wide berth out of habit.

Great stuff mentioned upthread, i'll add two things that would happen within relatively short amounts of time (i.e. within the first couple of decades, fast enough that survivors of the apocalypse would notice grave changes within their remaining lifetime):

1. A lot of terrain that's basically open now would start to be covered first by brushland and shrubs (of the particularly fast varieties like brambles, kudzu, knotweed etc.) and then somewhat slower turn to dense secondary forest of fast-growing tree species. This would radically alter how the countryside looks - away with your amber waves of grain, in with the claustrophobic atmosphere of square miles of shrubland that are basically impassible for man and vehicle alike, with only multi-lane highways persisting longer, but getting overgrown as well. Do you know these worker teams that trim the stuff that's growing on the shoulder of the road multiple times per year? These don't happen anymore, and soon the thickets will start to grow, first from the resting areas and off-ramps outward, soon covering the whole affair.

2. Something similar will happen with most waterways: most of these need constant attention, someone opening and closing locks, dredgeing accumulated silt and mud, removing driftwood that gets caught on bridges, weirs and locks, and so on. With this critical maintenance lacking, and with nobody taking care of dikes and levess, bridges will start to collapse, burrowing animals, storms and floods will lead to breaks in dams, and many areas will be flooded, potentially even whole rivers will shift back to their old, meandering courses if the artificial canals degrade enough. This will lead to the re-creation of large areas of wetlands or areas that flood for significant parts of the year, again shifting the biome there considerably and creating vast tracts of land that are all-but-impossible to navigate safely if you did not spend decades living there and know the turn of the season inside-out.

Main reason this was rattling around in my head? I was thinking of a semi-automated invasion attempt type setting.

Essentially, alien ship arrives in orbit and deploys something to take out the human populace. But like a Neutron Bomb type weapon, nothing which would damage infrastructure.

Only…something went wrong. The device(s) deployed fine, but perhaps underperformed, going from an expected 99.9% extinction to 90%. Drastically reducing the human population, but not in itself harming our tech level.

And to add to the Alien tragedy? Their species was invading due to pending extinction of their own. And they weren’t quick enough. Their home world is gone, and their cryogenics were either purposefully sabotaged, or just flawed. So none of them remain.

Net result? Humanity gets slapped down, and there’s no follow up blow to stop us getting up again. Our aggressors are simply gone.

Of course, as well as us having to contend with nature in a way many of us just haven’t had to in our lifetimes, or even for generations, our technology not being directly affected doesn’t mean those who remain have the knowledge to use it - but that knowledge would, for the most part, still exist in some form, like books, websites etc.

Now the probably unavoidable tech regression would only be part of the problem compared to nature reasserting itself. Not “back to the dark ages” tech regression, at least not instantly. But I think once tinned foods became scarce, farming and animal husbandry would soon become a priority, as would securing clean water. And the success of that would very much be dependant on how the wider biome is affected.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Main reason this was rattling around in my head? I was thinking of a semi-automated invasion attempt type setting.

Essentially, alien ship arrives in orbit and deploys something to take out the human populace. But like a Neutron Bomb type weapon, nothing which would damage infrastructure.

Only…something went wrong. The device(s) deployed fine, but perhaps underperformed, going from an expected 99.9% extinction to 90%. Drastically reducing the human population, but not in itself harming our tech level.

And to add to the Alien tragedy? Their species was invading due to pending extinction of their own. And they weren’t quick enough. Their home world is gone, and their cryogenics were either purposefully sabotaged, or just flawed. So none of them remain.

Net result? Humanity gets slapped down, and there’s no follow up blow to stop us getting up again. Our aggressors are simply gone.

Of course, as well as us having to contend with nature in a way many of us just haven’t had to in our lifetimes, or even for generations, our technology not being directly affected doesn’t mean those who remain have the knowledge to use it - but that knowledge would, for the most part, still exist in some form, like books, websites etc.

Now the probably unavoidable tech regression would only be part of the problem compared to nature reasserting itself. Not “back to the dark ages” tech regression, at least not instantly. But I think once tinned foods became scarce, farming and animal husbandry would soon become a priority, as would securing clean water. And the success of that would very much be dependant on how the wider biome is affected.

Interesting setting idea.

I think you'd fall back to about the level of technology at the start of the Industrial Revolution with that scenario - knowledge in the wider sense might still be there, but so much of everything that exists post-1945 relies on a globally distributed system of resources and standardized parts and materials that it is still effectively gone with that reduction in population. You might have use of existing car engines and such for as long as they don't break down and you can scrounge up some workable petrol supply, but eventually this will give out and even for a well-organized survivor group, running the whole process from sourcing oil to refinery etc. is probably not manageable. The main source of sustainable power would be either steam engines running on all-purpose burners that you feed mostly with wood, or, if you get slightly more sophisticated, ethanol burners that you can furnish with fuel relatively easy because almost any agricultural society can give you a steady stream of pretty pure ethanol from a variety of sources.


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By the way, have a look one one of the most fascinating internet rabbitholes i've ever encountered:

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/

I think it would also vary depending on when you are in the world.

The UK for instance? We don’t have much in the way of wild Predators. Some reintroduction trials are underway, so never say never. But whether they’d be in a position to take advantage is something I couldn’t comment on. And with our typical weather there’s a lot we can grow in terms of veggies, with plenty of rivers with pretty clean “still advisable, but maybe not compulsory to boil it first” rivers.

Lots of small villages and towns, which I could see becoming centres of population, as cities with their comparatively lesser arable land being abandoned to nature, other than supply runs for modern medicines etc.

Where is just as important. IF 90% were lost but that 90% was focused on developed western and high technology nations with the surviving populations in poorer nations and isolated triable groups and such then the technology drop would be not only vast, but also very long lasting.

Because even if it is written down, there's no one there to read it and by the time there is the language is lost and has to be rebuilt. Plus vast amounts of infrastructure, eg the internet, rely on lots of interconnected elements to run in order to function. Take that away and, again, you lose vast amounts of learning.

Even within a nation the who of who survives is important. If its all farmers then food production will be ok for a while; but if you've just lost all your petrochemists and scientists then, again you've lost a lot.

Remember even if we all speak the same language there is a huge amount within the sciences and within any discipline that is basically its own language and layer of understanding.


So yep you'd lose a lot of knowledge. Heck consider how much we've lost even in recent times. NASA are having to rebuild their database on how to get to the Moon for example.

Many things are not always written down; of those that are not always all of it is written down; and sometimes you have to have someone to tell you how to read it to understand it.



Of course if there is nothing to keep populations regressed then recovery would be pretty swift so long as key elements of infrastructure could be maintained. If you can preserve food, water and health elements; if you can retrain doctors and rebuild then that 10% could certainly rebuild pretty quickly. Even though we are slow breeders, our capacity to ensure a very high survival rate and a very low death rate into adult and old age means that we can expand very quickly in terms of population.



The idea of cities being supply runs depends. 10% of 7billion is still a VERY big number. More than enough to support cities. Plus cities are where industry and homes are. If you've got enough of the infrastructure to allow modern farming to work then you don't need peple in the countryside. A modern farm can run with a handful of people. Granted that's assuming you've got someone who can strip down and understand how to fix a modern tractor. Todays' closed-shop approach to repair work could be the undoing of humanity in a disaster situation

I think it also depends a bit on the big lottery of who survives with what knowledge.
Looking at Germany: if enough people knowing stuff about Wind and solar power as well as powergrids survive, we should be able to hold up our electrical power grid. Especially as with only 10% population left and quite a few of the big facilities shutting down there should be enough capacity installed to power on. Depending on how well one manages recycling it should be possible to get along quite a while before missing ressources from international trade become a severe problem.
The same should be the case for countries like Norway that have a lot of hydro-power plants. If the engineers that know how to run those things survive, they should not suffer heavy power outages.

Another factor would be how well the survivors cooperate to keep things running. You wrote of 90% death rate, which would still leave 800 million people alive. Or for example 8 million in Germany. I won't claim that it will be easy, but that should be enough to for example focus to keep up the production of agricultural tech, fertilizers, the most important medicine products etc. to keep our domestic agrar production in the game which should be enough to feed our people without imports. If other countries with a good base for for example trade and transportation (like a huge merchant fleet) focus on keeping that up, it might even be possible to keep the necessary part of international trade running. A lot would have to be rationed and some ugly decisions will have to be made, but I think 10% of humanity left would still be enough to not drift into a dark age.
1% left might lead to that... or if the death rate for some reason higher around engineers and people knowing how the elemental infrastructure, transportation and industrialized agriculture work. The last because I have my doubts if 10% of europeans left could feed themselves without highly efficient food production.

There is a great book in this subject, but focussing more on what will happen to the world if humanity disappears entirely and suddenly rather than the social aspects:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Without-Us-Alan-Weisman/dp/0753513579

It points to a few areas in the world where humans have suddenly been removed: Korean demilitarized zone, Chernobyl, Cyprus DMZ.

Apparently one of our longest lasting achievements is the channel tunnel, which is suggested as being recognizable as a technological creation for millions of years

I definitely think such books are the right starting point for this concept/setting, as even if we maintained an industrial level of technology, the sudden change in population density, and possibly mass migration of survivors to more stable regions, huge chunks of the world would be left to nature.

So start with “they’re dead Dave, they’re all dead” gives you something to work up from. A baseline of hazard and opportunity to drop perhaps half a dozen city states into. Kind of not entirely unlike Mega-Cities, just with nothing like the populations.

Pondering food supply? I guess one advantage is the relative ease of constructing poly tunnels. So in climates like Britain’s, we could probably still grow a decent variety of fruit and veg without being strictly tied to seasons. Not so much ignoring them via imports, but extending each season. This may also help protect crops from birds and bugs wanting to eat the fruit.

So whilst variety would absolutely suffer, I do wonder if it would noticeably affect abundance? Plus, depending on which season the hypothetical wipe out occurs, there may be plentiful crops to harvest when it’s time?

The other thing to note is humans do an awful lot of management to prevent invasive species spreading (most of which we introduced through trade etc). If humans stopped maintaining the forests of North America, for example, they'd look drastically different in a couple of decades as invasive species devastate most of the large tree species. This is already happening, but slowed markedly by forestry intervention.

Eventually a new status quo would settle out, but in the intervening years the ecosystem will be quite upended. Similar things are likely to happen elsewhere, although I don't know if the threats to Eurasian, African, South American, Oceanic etc. forests are as dramatic as for NA. This has major implications for surviving humans because large trees are hugely important to human activities if our global supply network is damaged.

 Tyran wrote:
There aren't that many nuclear plants and Chernobyl has already proven that nature is more than capable of enduring and thriving in spite of nuclear radiation.

Enduring yes, thriving maybe not. Some species are doing reasonably well, but the overall biodiversity is much lower than would be expected in terms of species count. IIRC soil organisms are markedly reduced.

 Haighus wrote:
The other thing to note is humans do an awful lot of management to prevent invasive species spreading (most of which we introduced through trade etc). If humans stopped maintaining the forests of North America, for example, they'd look drastically different in a couple of decades as invasive species devastate most of the large tree species. This is already happening, but slowed markedly by forestry intervention.

Eventually a new status quo would settle out, but in the intervening years the ecosystem will be quite upended. Similar things are likely to happen elsewhere, although I don't know if the threats to Eurasian, African, South American, Oceanic etc. forests are as dramatic as for NA. This has major implications for surviving humans because large trees are hugely important to human activities if our global supply network is damaged.

 Tyran wrote:
There aren't that many nuclear plants and Chernobyl has already proven that nature is more than capable of enduring and thriving in spite of nuclear radiation.

Enduring yes, thriving maybe not. Some species are doing reasonably well, but the overall biodiversity is much lower than would be expected in terms of species count. IIRC soil organisms are markedly reduced.

Oceania in particular is all sorts of fethed in regard to invasive species - stuff like rats, rabbits, goats, pigs etc. are all already there or even in the wild, and are chomping at the bit to wipe out much of the local fauna and some of the flora the moment the programs to eliminate them go away. It takes ridiculous amounts of effort to keep the current stalemate semi-stable, and species like the Kiwi or the Kakapo literally only exist yet because they're protected and get all the reproductive help in the world by humans, that's gone the moment the humans are. And the same is true for a great amount of the lesser-known, un-sexy or un-cute species.

But other ecosystems need not feel too safe - between the usual package of human civilization-following animals, notably dogs, cats, pigs, goats and rats you have a combo that can wreck any ecosystem efficiently, from rooting out local trees and plants to driving local large fauna to extinction.

Wild pigs, chickens, horses, and cattle are invasive species in the Americas. No way the continent would go back to the times where buffalos dominated the plains.

M.

AduroT wrote:Geese will suffer without humans. They thrive on our mowed lawns that give them easy access to food and open sight lines for predators, many of which we keep culled as well. A lot of dog breeds, mainly those stupid small ones, will vanish practically overnight. Deer probably see an initial surge without hunters and cars, but then as the wolves and cougars are free to move back in will have their numbers brought back down to manageable levels. Cats will boom, they will love it without us around to impede them. In general I think most prey will see an initial surge before the predators we kept in check reestablish themselves and things find a natural balance.

Geese don't need us to cut their greens, and winter is just another season for them with their oiled down coats. They forage and roam, rain, snow or shine. Getting greens around here won't be a problem most of the year, but if they're unable to adapt to no one bringing them feed in the winter then they may not establish themselves unless they interbreed with wild geese and take to migrating.

They're also very good at protecting their young. The heritage breeds won't have much issue adapting since they're bred to being outdoors and taking care of themselves already. Traits that are bred out the of purely production birds. Still how many heritage breeds will end up loose from the homestead and find their niche in the wild or enough of their own kind? Homesteads are typically highly dispersed so that could be a hinderance to expansion.

As to dogs even little dogs can be accepted into the hierarchy of wild packs, some might even be top dog of their own pack. Their survival will be less about size and more about opportunities, and their ability to survive a winter (at least here.)

Overread wrote:
Fun fact - savannah isn't even a natural ecosystem

Isn't the change from forest to savanna what brought the ancestors down from the trees?


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*multi-quote fail, on my part (I guess)

 Adeptekon wrote:

Overread wrote:
Fun fact - savannah isn't even a natural ecosystem

Isn't the change from forest to savanna what brought the ancestors down from the trees?


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*multi-quote fail, on my part (I guess)

IT might be more true to say that stable savanna isn't a natural state but more of a transitional one.

However it also starts to highlight how many ecosystems as we understand them aren't static entities. It's one of the bugbears of conservation, especially in the UK because UK conversation puts a lot of energy into preserving ecosystems as they are (or as they once were). The thing is most natural ecosystems are not static and are constantly shifting and changing. In a natural environment one changing to another isn't an issue. When one changes to another, another is changing to the former so populations that are mobile can migrate; whilst those who could not would die out.

Today migratory pathways are blocked by human settlements, roads, farms and all so even mobile species have a lot of challenges and the amount of wilderness is reduced too.

It's also interesting because many UK conservation groups spread the word to other nations that other nations should leave their ecosystems alone to manage themsleves; although often as not some countries have parks and such that are vast compared to what the UK has.


Preservation isn't bad, esp when the ecosystem itself has very few naturally occurring examples in a depleted environment. However its highlighting how even some of our reserves and wilderness areas are still heavily managed environments that require a lot of input to be maintained as they are.

Tsagualsa wrote:

Enduring yes, thriving maybe not. Some species are doing reasonably well, but the overall biodiversity is much lower than would be expected in terms of species count. IIRC soil organisms are markedly reduced.

The biodiversity is low but that's because it is Europe, biodiversity has been low in that continent for the last millennia or so.
Compared to anywhere else on that continent, Chernobyl is thriving because humans are far more destructive than mere radiation poisoning.

 Tyran wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:

Enduring yes, thriving maybe not. Some species are doing reasonably well, but the overall biodiversity is much lower than would be expected in terms of species count. IIRC soil organisms are markedly reduced.

The biodiversity is low but that's because it is Europe, biodiversity has been low in that continent for the last millennia or so.
Compared to anywhere else on that continent, Chernobyl is thriving because humans are far more destructive that mere radiation poisoning.

That was me

My understanding is that the biodiversity is apparently lower in Chernobyl than other similar European areas, not compared to Earth as a whole.

Not disagreeing that humans are not the bigger threat to Earth's ecosystems, just that Chernobyl is not particularly healthy, it is more ok as an ecosystem. It will form its own niche of more-radiation-resistant critters that will gradually fade away as the radiation fades.

Having just looked this up for a refresher, it appears somewhat equivocal for studies looking at effects at least a decade after the disaster (the immediate effects being obviously bad but recoverable). Apparently this being due in main to the difficulties of measuring dose on different organisms because of a variety of factors.

This article looks like a good summary:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X17309347

 Overread wrote:


However it also starts to highlight how many ecosystems as we understand them aren't static entities. It's one of the bugbears of conservation, especially in the UK because UK conversation puts a lot of energy into preserving ecosystems as they are (or as they once were). The thing is most natural ecosystems are not static and are constantly shifting and changing. In a natural environment one changing to another isn't an issue. When one changes to another, another is changing to the former so populations that are mobile can migrate; whilst those who could not would die out.

The idea is that we want to limit the human footprint that might be driving the change. You're correct in saying some of these aren't natural as colonists, settlers, and plantations changed the species and layout of the environment.

 Overread wrote:
Today migratory pathways are blocked by human settlements, roads, farms and all so even mobile species have a lot of challenges and the amount of wilderness is reduced too.

Yes with people they are a hinderance to free movement, with no traffic roads will and high ways won't have road kill, and some animals (some already do) may begin to follow the paths we've paved.

 Overread wrote:
Preservation isn't bad, esp when the ecosystem itself has very few naturally occurring examples in a depleted environment. However its highlighting how even some of our reserves and wilderness areas are still heavily managed environments that require a lot of input to be maintained as they are.

It will be an experiment, new species will arrive, animals in greater numbers, maybe we'll eventually have great cats roaming the great plains.

To add to my comments on domestic fowl, another hinderance of seeing them out there after humans, will the hybrids who typical can't have offspring because they die off too soon, aren't broody, or fertile. Wild hybridization is another thing too I don't see a strong case of this producing too much.

That said maybe the best possibility is for an escape from a hatchery or conservatory specializing in more than just commercial breeds, such as exotics, rare, and heritage birds.

 Haighus wrote:

Not disagreeing that humans are not the bigger threat to Earth's ecosystems, just that Chernobyl is not particularly healthy, it is more ok as an ecosystem.

And part of my point is that just by being ok puts it above 90% of whatever remains of European ecosystems, which definitely are not okay.

There are exceptions of course, like the northern Scandinavian forests. But as a rule any ecosystem that has significant interaction with human activity is not okay, and Europe is covered in human activity.

I wonder if enough remains in the American Midwest of the original native grasses that we could once again see prairies as a major biome, assuming humans are all gone or drastically reduced. I imagine most of the necessary plants have been removed to make way for farms and stuff though. I've been to a place in southern Missouri where there is a little bit of preserved prairie land, and it's really something to see. Just imagining the settlers on the Oregon Trail pushing through that stuff (before they died of dysentery) in covered wagons, it must have been quite the slog.

I'm not sure how much CRP land is out there in the Midwest, but it's there. I'd assume state and national parks would be preserves that could grow outwards with no more boundaries containing them.