Sustaining Music by Sustaining Insects?

Rhinoceros beetle, courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Sustaining music means sustaining not only the cultural soil but also the physical soil; that is, the environment upon which we all depend. That's why it's important to conserve not only music, culture, and the people that make and carry it, but also the physical environment that sustains it all.

This may seem a little counter-intuitive at first. Asked what species were abundant in nature, Darwin is said to have replied that God must have been inordinately fond of beetles. In fact, there are so many different species of beetles that many are still being identified and scientists estimate that there are a great many more still unknown. In the face of all this, one might legitimately ask what difference does it make if a thousand unknown species of beetles go extinct? And for good measure, how about black flies, mosquitoes and poisonous snakes, not to mention deer ticks?

The answer, of course, is that we're all connected. Everyone knows about food chains and food webs, but a point that’s sometimes overlooked is that if you break too many strands in the webs or links in the chain, the ill effects are felt all the way along them. We hear about significant losses in bee populations and we might be tempted to think, well that’s good, now I don’t have to worry as much about being stung. But of course bees are among the greatest of plant pollinators, and a major bee die-off means fewer wild and domestic fruits and flowers, fewer vegetables, and less food for all the creatures that feed on them, including us. Humans are dependent on insects, and worms (in the soil), and so on all the way along the chain. And we’re also likely dependent in ways we don’t yet fully comprehend. And so, it’s not an either/or proposition, either we try to improve the lot of humans or we try to improve the lot of plants and animals. It’s both/and because we’re all connected. 

A study published this month in the journal Biological Conservation warns about insect extinctions and makes the same point, more forcefully and eloquently than I ever could. The study reviews what is known about “the drivers of insect extinctions, their consequences, and how extinctions can negatively impact humanity.” The abstract continues:

"We are causing insect extinctions by driving habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation, use of polluting and harmful substances, the spread of invasive species, global climate change, direct overexploitation, and co-extinction of species dependent on other species.

With insect extinctions, we lose much more than species. We lose abundance and biomass of insects, diversity across space and time with consequent homogenization, large parts of the tree of life, unique ecological functions and traits, and fundamental parts of extensive networks of biotic interactions. Such losses lead to the decline of key ecosystem services on which humanity depends. From pollination and decomposition, to being resources for new medicines, habitat quality indication and many others, insects provide essential and irreplaceable services. We appeal for urgent action to close key knowledge gaps and curb insect extinctions. An investment in research programs that generate local, regional and global strategies that counter this trend is essential. Solutions are available and implementable, but urgent action is needed now to match our intentions."