Lesson 1: Why Study Insects

Explain some of the ways that insects cause damage

1) Attack us directly, plague our domestic animal, transmit diseases of both plants and animals 2) Insects cause harm by their feeding activities 3) When insects feed upon us, it causes pain and itching 4) Insects act as transmission agents (vectors) of diseases to humans as well as our animals 5) They can be extremely annoying

Describe the relative abundance of insects in comparison to other living things

1) Insects are the most abundant of all living things in terms of numbers of kinds. 2) According to one estimate, insects exist at an average of about 400 pounds per acre in the US, as compared to the weight of humanity, said to be about 14 pounds per acre. 3) Been estimated that some 80 percent of the world's species of organisms are insects 4) About 800,000 different species of insects have been named by scientists 5) estimates indicate that there may be as many as 30 million different kinds of insects 6) Dr. May Berenbaum suggests that there may be some 10 quintillion individual insects on the earth

Give some examples of some of the ways insects are beneficial

1) Provide a major source of food for other animals, pollinate many plant, degrading litter and wastes, assist in controlling populations or harmful insects 2) estimated that 1/3 of our diet would not be available without the pollination efforts of insects 3) Other beneficial insects break down and recycle nutrients and keep the earth clean 4) Insects act as natural and biological control agents 5) Some insects produce products that are useful to us 6) Because they are valuable organisms for scientific study 7) Insects are important scavengers and play a valuable role in the decomposition of both plant and animal bodies 8) Forensic entomologists are able to use evidence from insect feeding in the determination of time and place of human death

Explain why the study of insects is important

1) They are valuable organisms for scientific study. 2) They are among the most successful creatures on earth. 3) Because they are beneficial

Ecosystem

A biological community considered in relation to its physical environment

Equine Encephalitis

A severe viral disease of horses and mules that may also affect birds, reptiles and humans

Pollinator

An agent (i.e. animals, water, wind) that transfers pollen from the anthers to the stigma

Invertebrate

An animal lacking a a backbone

Scavenger

An animal that feeds partly or wholly on the bodies of dead animals

Predator

An animal that naturally preys on others

Parasitoid

An insect that lives in its immature stages in or on another insect, which it kills after completing it own feeding

Vector

An organism that carries parasites, pathogens or other organisms from one host to another

Parthenogenetic

Production of young from unfertilized eggs

Entomology

The branch of zoology concerned with the study of insects

Habitat

The region or place which an insect inhabits

Biosphere

The regions of the surface, atmosphere and hydrosphere of the earth occupied by living organisms

Ecological Niche

The role and position a species has in its environment, how it meets it needs for food and shelter, how it survives, and how it reproduces

Pollination

The transfer of pollen to a stigma, ovule, flower, or plant to allow fertilization

Forensic Entomology

The use of insects and their arthropod relatives that inhibit decomposing bodies to help legal investigators determine the time or location of death