Respect the Little Things

As the famous biologist E. O. Wilson put it in his 2006 book, The Creation, "more respect is due the little things that run the world." He was speaking of insects.

I have to say, I found his book to be a great read. Wilson has written it as an open letter to an unnamed Southern Baptist pastor, appealing to him to assist in the effort to save biodiversity on Earth.

There are many quotes on which I could draw, but frankly, his discussion of the role insects play in our world was truly eye-opening to me. As Wilson put it, if anything ever happened to the human race-- if we were to somehow vanish-- nothing would change for the thousands and thousands of insect species on Earth. Their environments would resort to "normal" in the span of a few centuries, and they would continue to flourish.

However, if the insects of the world were to vanish, the environment on Earth would soon collapse into chaos. Wilson describes the steps life on Earth would take without its insects:

"A majority of the flowering plants, upon being deprived of their pollinators, cease to reproduce.

Most herbaceous plant species among them spiral down to extinction. Insect-pollinated shrubs and trees hang on for a few more years, in rare cases up to centuries.

The great majority of birds and other land vertebrates, now denied specialized foliage, fruits, and insect prey on which they feed, follow the plants into extinction.

The soil remains largely unturned, accelerating plant decline, because insects, not earthworms as generally supposed, are the principal turners and renewers of the soil.

Populations of fungi and bacteria explode and remain at a peak over a few years while metabolizing the dead plant and animal material that piles up.

wind-pollinated grasses and a handful of fern and conifer species spread over much of the deforested terrain, then decline to some extent as the soil deteriorates.

The human species survives, able to fall back on wind-pollinated grains and marine fishing. But amid widespread starvation during the first several decades, human populations plunge to a small fraction of their former level. The wars for control of the dwindling resources, the suffering, and the tumultuous decline to dark-age barbarism would be unprecedented in human history.

Clinging to survival in a devastated world, and trapped in an ecological dark age, the survivors would offer prayers for the return of weeds and bugs.

The bottom line of my scenario is this: be careful with pesticides. Do not give thought to diminishing the insect world."