As I’ve mentioned before, some of the biggest issues facing moths are habitat loss and becoming the unintended target of biocontrol efforts- while we may only be able to influence the latter policy-wise, we have a lot of options when looking at moth habitat and population concerns. When I started looking for groups that work […]
Archive for the ‘Insects’ Category
Sharing the night with moths
Careful management for moths
In my last post I mentioned that two of the biggest challenges facing native moth populations are unintended targeting by biological control species and habitat fragmentation. With regard to biological control, the remedy is to be as selective with insect-specific controls as we are with other species, and that’s something to be addressed at a […]
A complicated relationship with moths
In looking at moth conservation research over the last week, it quickly became clear that we have something of a love-hate relationship with these insects, a relationship that is heavily influenced by whether or not a species is native. As might be expected, native species are often in trouble and non-natives often cause trouble for […]
All aflutter
I tend to have ambivalent feelings about insects- love the dung beetles, not so much the termites. I’m also a creature of the day- sun’s up and I’m ready to go, sun’s down and I’m ready for bed. As a result, while I spend a good chunk of time paying attention to the butterflies I […]
Helping fireflies glow
Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent some time looking into firefly research and conservation around the world- some aspects of it were considerably more challenging to dig up than others, but I think that I have a much better sense of what it means to be a firefly and the roles that these insects […]
Lights out
In my last post, I mentioned some of the challenges facing firefly populations around the world, including habitat loss and pollution, and this week I wanted to get a better sense of our options for halting population declines and making a human-dominated landscape more firefly-friendly. To be honest, I was kind of hoping to find […]
The life aquatic (and semi-aquatic and terrestrial) of fireflies
My foray into firefly ecology over the past week has been fascinating on a number of levels- clearly in my previous ideas about fireflies, I had far too simple a concept of what these insects were: fireflies are more diverse, more widespread, and more sophisticated than I had ever imagined. They are also more indicative […]
A bright future for fireflies?
My appreciation for most insects was late in developing- I very much recognize their contributions to world ecosystems today and am aware that they are integral to so many of the ecological processes we depend upon (like pollination and decomposition), but that wasn’t always the case. Now I have a better understanding of how many […]