>> In the Blue Ridge Mountains it's hard to separate unintended lepidopteran population decline (caused by damage to the environment) from the intended decline (caused by all-out germ war on spongey moths). <<
Yikes.
>>I write about them because it's a niche and of course the butterflies are pretty pollinators.<<
Sure they're pretty, but they're also crucial to the food web. First, they are pollinators, and if they disappear then many flowering plants will struggle to reproduce. Especially since we're also hemorrhaging bees. Second, almost all terrestrial birds raise their chicks on caterpillars, that is, the larvae of butterflies and moths. We're already down about a third of birds, and in some categories more -- it's half of grassland species. But if we lose the lepidopterans, then the avian population will really crash. O_O
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dancing_serpent
Thoughts
Date: 2025-03-13 01:06 am (UTC)Yikes.
>>I write about them because it's a niche and of course the butterflies are pretty pollinators.<<
Sure they're pretty, but they're also crucial to the food web. First, they are pollinators, and if they disappear then many flowering plants will struggle to reproduce. Especially since we're also hemorrhaging bees. Second, almost all terrestrial birds raise their chicks on caterpillars, that is, the larvae of butterflies and moths. We're already down about a third of birds, and in some categories more -- it's half of grassland species. But if we lose the lepidopterans, then the avian population will really crash. O_O