I was reading this article about how ecosystems are impacted by insects, and the fact that pesticides, climate change and habitat loss are key factors to the decline in the general insect population, and I remembered how in my Science 11 class, we wanted to talk about a specific population impacted by these factors.
The population my group chose was fireflies. The conclusion on our talk was that for all they are as a beauty to behold, human actions as seen the past decades have been disrupting their mating cycles, their homes and their short lives. The article really reminded me that us humans just do whatever we want, and that's something we just often go about without thinking. I don't crucify it, it's not really our fault if it's in our nature to be self-absorbed, but if you just take a step back, if you just look at the bigger picture for a moment, you'll realize that we are too impactful to our environment, to the point that our co-inhabitants are forced to adjust to us despite all of us being living beings. For such minuscule lifeforms, the lives of other species are hinged on our decisions.
We are our own ripple in the waters.
It's also in this line of thought that makes you also kind of ponder, because this will all come back biting us in the end. For short term relief, we employ pesticides and lights and residential and non-residential expansion, but at the cost of our insects. This may seem like a good thing, but it really isn't. Insects are the main contributors for pollination, matter decomposition, and nutrient cycling. Without insects, food quality lowers, and predators lose prey. Predators that lose prey die because of lack of food, and the loss of such also impact the populations that rely on the food chain for survival. For all we are about our ideologies, long term wise, our food chain will slowly rupture from bottom-up. If we keep pushing with our wants, we'll be the ones who'll regret in the end.