Have you been noticing fewer insects about recently? Perhaps not as quite as many butterflies as you once recall there having been? A perceptible decrease in how many bees seem to be buzzing about? If you have, you’re not wrong, but unfortunately you’re also in the minority. Insects aren’t the sort of creatures most people tend to notice – unless one is buzzing about their head or making a tiny hematologic withdrawal from their circulatory system.
Prof. Dave Goulson has also been concerned about this growing paucity of populations in the Class Insecta; so much so that he has written a new book – Silent Earth; Averting the Insect Apocalypse – on the topic of both their decline and the myriad problems that such a decline poses not only for us humans but the entire global ecosystem.
Mark Avery, on-the-spot bookish gent that he is, has taken up Prof. Goulson’s new book in his Sunday Book Review this week. Admitting himself to be among those “whose knowledge and understanding of the natural world is highly slanted towards feathered vertebrates,” he was particularly pleased at how “this book helps to put things in perspective.” You can find Mark’s complete review of Silent Earth, as well as his many other previous ones, on his website.
Links to Dr. Mark Avery’s Sunday book reviews appear in The Well-read Naturalist by special arrangement. You can find all of Mark’s past reviews as well as a wide-ranging collection of his other writings on his Standing Up for Nature website. Mark’s opinions regarding the books he reviews are his own.
