Insects get a bad rap

Insects get a bad rap. With the possible exceptions of honey bees and colourful butterflies, human beings tend to view arthropods as pests, crop destroyers or vectors of disease (amongst many other malevolent epithets). This view became eerily stark to me yesterday, when, as I was reading an online article on the demise of insect populations in the last three decades, the targeted advertising of the Google algorithm was surreptitiously reminding me of the services of a well known pest control company. However, with a recent study in Germany finding that insect biomass had reduced by 76% in 26 years, we really need to re-evaluate the entomological rap sheet.

Insects are crucial to the regular functioning of all ecosystems. They comprise around 60% of all known species on earth and are food for a huge majority of the other 40%. If the insects disappear so too, do many bats, birds, spiders and a whole host of other predators further up the food chain. Insects pollinate the vast majority of wild plants and 75% of the cultivated crops we rely on for food. Insects begin the process of recycling dead vegetation, dung and dead animals. Insects provide health benefits to soils and some help to control others that we deem as pests. Without insects, entire landscapes would change and life as we know it would cease to exist.

So what is going on? Why are insects disappearing? A recent study points the finger at:

1. Habitat loss
2. Pesticides and other pollutants
3. Introduced species
4. Climate change

Intensive industrial farming eliminates almost all life from the soil and is focussed on growing huge swathes of monoculture crops that have to be doused in staggering quantities of fertilisers and pesticides. Some of the modern insecticides are known to be monstrously toxic to bees. Just one teaspoon of neonicotinoid insecticide is required to kill one and a quarter billion honey bees. I will repeat that as it is so staggering – 1tsp of neonicotinoid insecticide required to kill 1.25 billion honey bees. 

Neonicotinoids are so widely used and so persistent in the soil that a study found them in 75% of honey samples collected from around the world. This is an enormous amount of the world’s honey bees being exposed to these highly toxic insecticides and implies a similar amount of exposure for any flower-visiting insects. In the UK alone, farmers apply almost 17,000 tonnes of pesticides to the landscape each year. Worldwide it is more like 2.5 million tonnes.

These are quite depressing statistics and we can feel powerless in the face of large environmental issues such as deforestation in the amazon and ongoing climate change. However, helping to conserve insects is an activity everyone can participate in and feel as if they are making some kind of difference. Insects live all around us and even the smallest gardens or window boxes can provide food for pollinating insects. You only need to grow some of the more suitable plants. Cottage garden plants like aquilegia, geraniums, phlox, campanula and honeysuckle are good choices. Herbs such as lavender, rosemary, marjoram and thyme are favourites of pollinators. Try to avoid some of the annual bedding plants like pelargoniums, busy lizzies, petunias and begonias as these types of plants have been highly bred for long lasting flowers, bright colours and retail shelf life at the expense of nectar or pollen that is available to foraging insects. Other plants to avoid are the double flowering varieties that obstruct entry to the stamens and nectaries.

Some other ways to make your garden more attractive to insects are:

1. You could try mowing your lawn, or part of it, less often. The number of flowers that will appear will be quite surprising. 
2. You could make your garden a pesticide free zone. 
3. Include a pond in your garden. Even the smallest ponds provide places for hoverflies to lay their eggs.
4. Compost your own garden waste to provide further habitat for insects.
5. Introduce log piles at the back of borders or bug hotels on fences, walls and sheds.
6. Deadhead your plants for longer flowering periods.
7. Be more tolerant of some insect damage on leaves, flowers and fruit.

Gardens in the UK cover 500,000 hectares of land. If it was possible to persuade most of the UK garden owners to carry out the suggestions above, the positive results for insect populations would be tangible. We would still have to confront the damage done by industrial farming but that is for another day and another blog post. We can make a stand right now in our own gardens and watch as our outdoor spaces come alive with the vitality of the natural world. What’s not to like?