Insect-friendly gardens

Creepy, crawly, tiny and mostly unobtrusive, insects have mostly taken a back seat in the public eye when it comes to threatened species. While the focus of conservation efforts has been on glamorous mammals like snow leopards and polar bears, insects are going extinct eight times faster than their vertebrate cousins.

More than 40 per cent of insect species are at risk of annihilation in the coming decades, according to a review of 73 reports on declining insect populations in the journal Biological Conservation. Those most in decline are butterflies, moths, dung beetles and Hymenoptera (the order which includes bees, wasps and ants). Critically endangered aquatic insects include mayflies and dragonflies. The researchers blame intensive agriculture, habitat loss, synthetic pesticides and fertilisers, and to a lesser extent, climate change, pathogens and introduced species.

Many scientists believe we’re experiencing a “sixth mass extinction”, a loss of wildlife unparalleled since the dinosaurs, caused by human overpopulation and activity. When it comes to declining insects, American entomologist, Dr Jeff Pettis, believes pesticides, which contaminate land, water and air, are the single biggest factor. Proof of insect sensitivity to pesticides, a 2015 UK study found exposing wasps to a sub-lethal dose (100 parts per billion)