Hi! I have seen a lot of posts of people saying that the extinction of insects would be this huge bad thing but how?
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Insect do most of the pollination of plants and a lot of them clean up of dead plant and animal matter. If they all disappeared, plants wouldn’t get fertilized and our food supply could disappear. Also there could be a buildup of dead stuff that can cause issues.
Because bigger things feed on those insects and bigger things feed on those bigger things and if they all don’t have food to eat they go extinct. And when that happens things like plants that rely on things like birds to scatter and reproduce around the landscape can’t scatter and reproduce so certain plants start to die out. And all this can result in other effects.
I keep bees, I have 11 hives now and they are actually really hard to take care of. Plus they have all kinds of natural predators. I have to put the legs of the metal stands that the hives sit on top of in motor oil so ants or something worse doesn’t crawl in. Moths, etc.
Because insects are pollinators and at the pretty much beginning of the food chain.
Pollinator part:
Insects go around flowers and bring pollen from flower to flower so the flowers can grow into fruits/reproduce. If this doesn’t happen, a lot of plants will either go extinct or start reproducing way slower than before (why that is an issue I’ll explain in the food chain part)
Food chain part:
This is honestly a very interesting topic and you should look into it a bit, I won’tbe able to explain all the details.
So basically insects are the main food of a lot of bigger animals, like birds for example. If insects go extinct, certain birds won’t have anything to eat and will go extinct too, and then the animals and plants that either eat or benefit off of those birds will either go extict too or have issues with reproduction, this will spiral on and on until a *lot* of other species go extinct.
The same principle for plants; if they go extinct (they won’t actually go *extinct* but rather become more rare, reply if you want me to explain why plants becoming less would lead to extinction of other species rather than jut the shrinking of said species) because insects don’t pollinate them, so then e.g. cows won’t have to eat anything and will go extinct too, (this example would directly affect humans), and also things like lavines and floods will get more common because plants usually hold together the land so it’s not as easily moved
Food Webs would collapse. Insects, along with other classes of animals, are involved in the nutrient and energy cycles that govern life on earth. They are scavengers to help decay dead plants and animals. They provide food for other insects and animals. Their interactions with plants help pollination allowing food to grow.
While, technically, “life finds a way” to overcome changes, losing all insects would be so change-intensive, we would not have the same world ever again. Numerous other classes of animals and plants (not just species) would die out to help re-establish the new normal.
Insects are very important to the ecosystem. Here’s a few examples:
* Ants, flies, and many other insects help accelerate decomposition of dead things, which converts it into compost/fertilizer faster. Without them, forest floors could get so covered in decaying matter that plants couldn’t grow.
* Burrowing insects can help aerate soil.
* Many birds and other animals have diets that consist solely of insects and there’s not another food source plentiful enough to keep them alive.
* Some insects like bees are crucial for many plants’ pollination.
Pollination is a big reason. A great percentage of our food wouldn’t grow if it wasn’t for insects pollinating
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