Marikay Shellman
BPW Colorado Virtual Chair
NFBPWC Environment and Sustainable Development 

In these hot summer months, the bugs start to bug us.  However, “If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago.   If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”  E. O. Wilson. 

We know that insects pollinate about 90% of all flowering plants.  As these pollinated plants turn the energy of the sun into the food we eat, they are absorbing large amounts of carbon, sending it into their roots and then into the soil.  We need many interacting species of insects to sustain our complex food web.  Insects, in their many forms of predators and parasitoids, are also the earth’s pest control and in this way keep food webs in balance.    

Insects are essential for the rapid decomposition of plants, helping to create new plant life which provides vegetation for watersheds.  This activity keeps our water clean and provides protection from floods. Most vertebrates- freshwater fish, birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians- eat insects which additionally sustains the earth’s ecosystems.   

Rather than thinking of bugs as threatening and harmful, appreciate that humans would only last on this earth for a few months without insects.  We have killed many species of insects close to extinction, monarch butterflies, fireflies, species of bumblebees, moths, crickets, katydids and the list goes on.  Insects can coexist with humans.  We need to sustain them and to do that, we need plants to sustain them.  

Caterpillars are a keystone to food webs, pollinating a majority of plants and providing the most nutrition and edible food to vertebrates.  Native Plant Finder (http://www.nwf.org/NativePlantFinder) ranks plant according to their hosting ability for caterpillars.  Audubon also has a website, Plants for Birds (https://www.audubon.org/native-plants).  Oak, cherry and willow are the best hosts for many species of caterpillars.   

Rather than pulling out that insecticide, learn to appreciate all the benefits of insects.