Professor Doug Tallamy, renowned entomologist and tireless crusader for the restoration of the natural world, inites us to see how insect life forms the basis for all life in the garden...and on the planet.
It also needs to be remembered that there were big things that mattered most when we think about ecology. Megafaunal herbivores were a second channel through which the energy captured by plants could be dispersed into the food chain by a myriad of other organisms (biting flies, dung beetles, wolves, crows, fly maggots etc). These large animals were also generalists in terms of the plants they fed on as opposed to the specialist insects. They transported nutrients and seeds around the landscape in ways that smaller organisms couldn't. They chased plants around the landscape much like wolves chasing elk around Yellowstone. In the eastern US shade-tolerant tree species will dominate the landscape if left uncontrolled, like overgrazing elk. This creates problems. For example all of professor Tallamy's most ecologically hard working plants (oaks, plums, willows, goldenrods, asters, sunflowers) are light demanding species that won't grow in a closed canopy forest. The diversity of insect life was dependant on the impacts of keystone megafauna to thrive and in many cases just to survive. Now a bison in the back yard might be a bit much to cope with. But we need to remember the impacts the vanished giants had when we try to garden in an ecological manner.
Damn I never thought of it like that. The idea of megafauna spreading around the energy in a massive way. I suppose one of our few options is to open closed canopy forests and bring back controlled burning on a bigger scale
Huge fan! Great talk. However,and I know it's a metaphor but the "chicken in every pot" expression should be dropped if our goal is saving the planet. Animal agriculture is counterproductive to everything discussed in this talk. Time to update our language as well as our eating habits. 🌱
