Biologist Edward O. Wilson Warns of a Bleak World Without Bugs

[n2doc]

Saving Earth From the Ground Up
Biologist Edward O. Wilson Warns of a Bleak World Without Bugs
By Adrian Higgins
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 30, 2007; Page C01


You may have heard of the nematode, that microscopic gelatinous worm in your garden soil, but did you know that four out of every five living creatures on Earth is a nematode? The whole bloody planet is crawling.

A gram of soil might also contain 5,000 species of bacteria and untold fungi in a secret universe separated only by the soles of our shoes and our sad ignorance of our global home. These and other marvelous revelations come from the celebrated Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, who was in town this week as lawmakers, government officials and scientists took a little time away from pressing matters of state to consider . . . the plight and the future of bugs. Laughable? No, don't dis bugs -- your very life depends on them, it turns out.Wilson, winner of two Pulitzers for his books on invertebrate life, lectured to more than 200 like-minded bug lovers as part of National Pollinator Week events and celebrations.

At 78, he remains a lithe figure, crowned with a mop of steel-gray hair and disco-age translucent brown glasses, as if hewn from amber but missing the frozen prehistoric mosquito. At Wednesday's talk at the Kaiser Family Foundation, Wilson was focused on putting self-absorbed Homo sapiens in some ecological context. If humans were to disappear -- he doesn't advocate this, for the record -- the effects on the insect world would be minimal. "It's unlikely a single insect species would go extinct except three forms of body and head lice," he said. Close relatives of the parasites could still live on gorillas. The primal, complex web of life would continue "minus all the species we have pushed into extinction." Ouch.

But reverse the tables, remove the insects, and what would happen? Wilson paints a Mad Max scenario, in which not only do the bees, flies, beetles, moths and butterflies disappear, but all the plants that rely on them to set fruit, nuts and seed vanish as well. No worries, you say, because two-thirds of the crops we eat are wind-pollinated. But insects, not earthworms, are the principal tillers of the soil, and without them this secret microbial universe in the soil would decline, too. Dwindling food sources and plunging human populations would bring out the beast in people, who would do what humans always do -- kill each other. Wilson speaks of "an ecological dark age" where "the survivors would offer prayers for the return of weeds and bugs."
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/29/AR2007062902334.html

[glitch]

1. Happy to see something like this in the Post. nt

[pansypoo53219]

2. got plenty of bugs

in our house.

[kestrel91316]

3. With creation of endless new persistent pesticides and herbicides,

the day may yet come when the remains of the dead cease to be food for new life. The Hindus worship Kali-ma for a very good reason. Even the bible speaks of "ashes to ashes, dust to dust". If we destroy nature's means of recycling the formerly living, it WILL be the end.