Significant Insects

A growing number of the Earth's insect population now exists only in collections like these. "Nobody's seen those 400 years." A new review of over 70 studies of insect populations suggests that human pressures are causing insect populations to plummet by as much as a quarter every decade. "Some of my colleagues have compared it to playing Jenga, you know. You remove pieces from the Jenga tower and everything seems to be okay. And then you remove one piece and the whole thing falls down. And you don't know which piece in advance that's going to be and once you've removed it, you can't put it back again. So the loss of species is inevitably concerning, because often we don't know what those species are doing. We don't know what other species are depending on them." Insects make up the largest class of animals on earth, and represent more than half of all known living organisms. They are incredibly diverse, and in many ways make life on Earth possible. Bees and butterflies pollinate our food, flowers and trees. They feed all kinds of larger animals, including humans. And insects play a vital role in the decomposition of all kinds of organic matter, from leaves to roadkill. Their collapse is being driven by human activity, everything from traffic to industrial farming and pesticides to light pollution. Scientists say doing nothing to solve the problem is not an option. "A large number of the crops we eat and rely on are pollinated by insects. So imagine a world where that pollination process is not taking place."