Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants

by Douglas W. Tallamy

By and large, people know next to nothing about the most diverse group of organisms ever to evolve, and what they do know comes from negative encounters with a few species of biting flies, “dirty” roaches, wasps with painful stings, or crop-devouring caterpillars. Our nearly universal animosity toward insects is understandable, but seriously misplaced. Of the 4 million or so insect species on earth (to put things in perspective, there are only about 9500 species of birds), a mere 1 percent interact with humans in negative ways. The other 99 percent of the insect species pollinate plants, return the nutrients tied up in dead plants and animals to the soil, keep populations of insect herbivores in check, aerate and enrich the soil, and as I keep stressing, provide food either directly or indirectly for most other animals. John Losey and Mace Vaughan (2006) have valued the ecosystem services provided by insects at $57 billion each year. As E. O. Wilson (1987) has pointed out, insects have done fine on this earth without humans and would continue to do so in our absence. If insects were to disappear, however, our own extinction would not be far behind. It may be hard to admit, but we need healthy insect populations to ensure our own survival.