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it's the opposite actually. Insects are incomparably more important than highly complex highly specialized animals when it comes to biodiversity.
by unixgoddess 4y ago
it's the opposite actually. Insects are incomparably more important than highly complex highly specialized animals when it comes to biodiversity.
- ceejayoz 4y agoInsects as a whole, yes. A single insect, generally not. If an endangered insect species is down to a population where single individuals matter, it's already a goner.
- atkailash 4y ago[dead]
- anonymouskimmer 4y agoThe Lord Howe Island Stick Insect bounced back from a remnant population of 24 individuals once rediscovered and taken to a larger habitat free from the predation that extirpated them from their original island.
- ceejayoz 4y agoMaybe. https://lhimuseum.com/learn/phasmids/ https://lhimuseum.com/learn/phasmids/ > In 2014, an unauthorised climbing team sighted live stick insects near the summit of Ball’s Pyramid, in a thicket of sedge plants rooted in very thin soils at an altitude of 500 metres, suggesting that the insect’s range on the island is more widespread than previously thought, and that its food preferences are not limited to Melaleuca howeana. That species likely was a goner, barring the human breeding program. Successful reintroduction is going to require humans to finish wiping out the rat population on Lord Howe Island (which wiped the insects out there in just two years after their 1918 introduction).
- anonymouskimmer 4y agoYep.
- unixgoddess 4y agoit was a "rare insect", so killing it is potentially catastrophic as insects are highly likely to play an important role in any ecosystem.