Often Considered Pests, What Would the Earth Be Without Insects? IPB University Expert Explains Their Benefits for Life
Insects are often underestimated, only identified with pests or nuisance animals. But who would have thought, these little creatures actually play a fundamental role in the sustainability of ecosystems and human life.
IPB University Entomology Expert Prof Damayanti Buchori highlighted how humans often view insects only from the negative side. “When people hear the word insect, what comes to mind is usually ants, cockroaches, or mosquitoes. In fact, insects play a key role in almost all ecological processes,” she said.
Indirectly, she said that insects are present in almost all trophic levels in the food chain, except autotrophs (organisms that can produce their own food/energy).
“Insects can be herbivores, carnivores, and decomposers. In fact, without them, the process of recycling nutrients in nature would be very slow,” she said.
One of the most basic roles of insects, according to Prof Damayanti, is pollination. She explained that 75 to 80 percent of flowering plants (Angiosperms) depend on pollination by animals and the majority of them are insects.
“Imagine if there were no bees or butterflies; coffee, tea, chocolate, and various fruits and vegetables would not be enjoyed as they are now,” she explained.
As a Professor of the Faculty of Agriculture at IPB University, Prof Damayanti also reviewed the role of insects as natural enemies of plant pests.
“Predators such as tomcats eat leafhoppers, including the brown planthopper. If the population is balanced, we don’t need pesticides,” she said.
Another important role of insects is as decomposers. Dung beetles, carrion flies, and even termites, for example, have an important role because they can decompose feces, carrion, and fallen trees in the forest, and return nutrients to the soil.
“Even in the forensic world, insects are used to determine the time of death through the order of arrival of flies and beetles on the carcass,” she said.
Prof Damayanti also mentioned the role of insects in the life cycle of banyan trees or known as part of the Ficus genus.
“The existence of Ficus is very dependent on its pollinators, which are small wasps from the Agaonidae family. There is a coevolutionary process that has occurred for thousands of years between Ficus and Agaonidae. If the wasp species becomes extinct, the Ficus species that depend on it will also become extinct,” she said.
In the end, Prof Damayanti invited the public not to only focus on the negative side of insects. “Don’t look down on small animals. Insects are small but their impact is extraordinary,” she said. (IAAS/TNY)
