About insects:

Insects provide useful services to mankind and the environment in a number of ways. They keep pest insects in check, pollinate crops we rely on as food, and act as sanitation experts, cleaning up waste so that the world doesn't become overrun with dung. Visit the links below to learn more!

Biological control

Food for humans

Medicinal uses

Pollination

Recycling

? Biological control:

Biological control is the use of predators and parasitoids to reduce the population of pests.?? When pests are threatening a crop, these beneficial insects can be released to eat the pest and prevent further damage.?? In some cases, insects that eat certain weeds can be released to keep the weed from spreading.

There are some differences between predators and parasites and parasitoids.?

Predator: Require more than one host to complete their development and they kills host when they feed on it.?? Example: Ladybug.

Parasite:? Require only one host to complete their development but they rarely kill the host.? Example: Lice.

Parasitoid:? Require only one host to complete their development but almost always kills the host in the process (which is similar to predators, but predators require many hosts).

? Food for humans :

The practice of eating insects, entomophagy, sounds gross to us but insects have served as a food source for people for tens of thousands of years.? It is now rare in most countries, but entomophagy is still practiced in parts of Central and South America, Africa, and Asia.

there are more than 1,400 edible species of insects, most popular are crickets and mealworms.?? But what do they taste like?

An avid entomophagist, Dave Gracer, describes how some insect taste:

? Dry-toasted cricket tastes like sunflower seeds.

? Katydid like toasted avocado.

? Palm grub like bacon soup with a chewy, sweet finish.

? Weaver ant pupae have practically no flavor.

? Giant water bug is, astonishingly, like a salty, fruity, flowery Jolly Rancher.

? Medicinal:

Insects, or chemicals extracted from them have been used for thousands of years to help us with medical issues.? This is called Entomotherapy.

Some examples:

1. Apitherapy.?? More commonly known as bee venom therapy. ??Bee venom is a complex composition of enzymes, proteins and amino acids, which simulates the release of cortisol (a hormone the body secretes when stressed).? Studies suggest bee venom may improve symptoms of:?

? ?????Rheumatoid Arthitis

? ?????Gout

? ?????Osteoarthritis

? ?????Bursitis

? ?????Tendonitis

? ?????Post herpetic neuralgia

? ?????Painful or keloid scars

? ?????Multiple Sclerosis

? ?????Fibromyalgia

? ?????Chronic fatigue syndrome?

2. ?Surgical maggots (maggot therapy).? A wound to an animal or person can lead to problem with infection.?? If let untreated, these wounds can attract certain types of blow flies that may lay their eggs in the wound.? The maggots that hatch from the eggs feed on the dead tissue in the wound and clean it.??

The beneficial effects of maggots upon the healing of infected wounds have been recognized since the time of the Mayans, and perhaps before that.?? With humans, maggots found their way into wounds when left untreated for too long.? This happened frequently under battlefield conditions.? But surgeons observed that wounds infested with maggots healed more quickly and with fewer complications than comparable wounds that had not become infested.?

3. ?Suture ants.?? When skin is cut deeply, stitches are usually needed to close the wound.?? In some cultures, ants were used to stitch wounds.?? They would hold the skin together, grab an ant with big jaws (like an army or leaf-cutter ant), put its mouth to the wound and wait for it to bite down.?? Then the body would be removed and the head left with the ant mouth pinching the skin together.

? Pollination:

Over 75% of all flowering plants, and 75% of our crops rely on animals for to carry pollen from one flower to another.? Most of these pollinators are insects.? Most of us think of honeybees when we hear the word “pollinator”.?? But, its not just honeybees that pollinate plants, other bees (native bees), butterflies, moths, beetles, and flies also perform this essential task.

The value of pollinators is high, each year in the U.S., honey bees pollinate approximately $15 Billion worth of crops.? The value of pollination services provided by native bees and other insects is even greater.

During the past several years, there has been a world-wide decline in in the number of insect pollinators.?? In North America alone, honeybee and native bee populations have dropped substantially.?? This is decline is thought to be a result of habitat loss, pesticide use, and pollution. ?

Restoring habitat by planting many different kinds of flowering plants and improving the ways that insecticides are used will help bee populations?

? Recyclers:

Imagine a world where leaves that fall from a tree, or poop never disappeared…they just accumulate over time.?? Soon we would be knee deep in dead plants, animals, and poop.?? There are many insects that feed on these resources and break them down into nutrients that help plants grow.?

These insects are called Saprophages (from the Greek words "sapros" meaning rotten and "phagein" the verb to eat or devour).?

a.? Insects that feed on dead or dying plant tissues.? There are many, soil- and wood-inhabiting species that shred leaves or tunnel in dead wood.?? ??This helps plant materials to decay quickly.?? Over time, decay creates humus, a type of soil rich in organic matter.?

b.? Insects that feed on dead animals (carrion).?? There are many insects that are attracted to and feed on carrion including beetles, flies, wasps, and ants.

Different species show up and feed on a dead body for a limited period of time but, all together, these insects rapidly consume and/or bury the decaying flesh. ?Blow flies are usually the first to arrive on a dead animal, and they are the first to complete development and depart.?? Other species follow over time in a relatively predictable sequence as the body decomposes.?? This change in the species composition of saprophages is called faunal succession.? This succession can help Forensic Entomologists pinpoint the time of death when a body is found.?

c.? ?Insects that feed on the poop of other animals. ???These insects are coprophages (feces eaters) and include mostly flies and dung beetles. ?

Dung beetles lay their eggs on poop, and the larvae feed on that.?? Dung beetles fall into three categories depending on how they use the poop.?? There are:?

? tunnelers (paracoprids): they construct tunnels into which they roll balls of poop.

? dwellers (endocoprids): they live usually in the poop on underneath it.

? rollers (telecoprids): they make balls of poop and roll them away to a shallow hole, then lay eggs on it.

?There are numerous benefits from poop eating insects. ??

? They help plants grow by quickly removing poop from vegetation…. without dung beetles, grazing land would become unusable because the poop would take a lot longer to go away.

? Dung beetle tunneling helps with get air to the roots of pasture plants and help rainwater soak in.

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