ecosystem importance: tropical insects role (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, October 11, 2023, 19:51 (407 days ago) @ David Turell

Aquatic insects at the shoreline:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/10/231009191700.htm

"A team of researchers from Queen Mary University of London and the University of Campinas in Brazil has found that tropical forest ecosystems are more reliant on aquatic insects than temperate forest ecosystems and are therefore more vulnerable to disruptions to the links between land and water.

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"They found that the spiders were consuming more aquatic insect prey in the tropics than in the UK, resulting in higher overall dietary diversity in the tropical food-webs, on-land. Their results indicated that tropical terrestrial animals are more reliant on and impacted by emerging aquatic insects. This suggests tropical environments are more vulnerable to future disruption to the interconnections between land and water.

"'Our findings show that we cannot simply apply knowledge from research in temperate zones to protect tropical ecosystems," said Dr. Pavel Kratina, senior author of the study and Senior Lecturer in Ecology at Queen Mary University of London. "That tropical ecosystems are more vulnerable to disruptions to the links between land and water is worrying considering the increasing human pressures on tropical freshwater ecosystems, which are among the most threatened in the world."

"Emerging aquatic insects can become a pathway for negative human impacts to move from one environment to another. For example, polluting a stream may reduce insect numbers, which may in-turn reduce availability of nutritious food for land-based predators. Tropical aquatic insects are under threat of catastrophic declines because of human activity and climate change -- the researchers' results suggest this would have cascading consequences across tropical environments.

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"The researchers' study stresses the need for greater protection of riparian buffers and broader consideration of the links between ecosystems, rather than considering different habitats in isolation, particularly in the tropics."

Comment: in ecosystems the relationships are important down to the tiny midge. Whatever is eating insects becomes meals for the next predators on the ladder until it reaches the jungle cat. Some of it becomes human food, the supply of which is globally threatened. My next banana is threatened by a loss of aquatic insects. In creating a huge bush of life, God intentionally supplied humans their food supply.