Bug-Based Biases and Beyond

Abstract

It seems to me that one of the central elements of entomological culture is the shared belief that insects, and therefore entomologists, are underappreciated. I agree with this belief. Insects are numerous, diverse, and many of them are the causes of ecological, medical, agricultural, and other economic effects that any reasonable person would recognize as “important.” With this in mind, it is therefore troubling when those with entomological expertise and training have difficulty securing jobs, or find themselves making less money or exerting less influence than they believe they should. To most of us, the obvious root cause of all this nonsense is biases. When I was a student, “the vertebrate bias” seemed to be the problem. Especially in conservation, wildlife management, and public portrayals of natural history, it seemed that most people thought that the living world consisted mainly of plants, birds, mammals, and fish, with a few creepy crawlies here and there, of interest mainly because they were food for things that really mattered. I remember feeling a sense of vindication when the first local conservation efforts on behalf of reptiles and amphibians came to be, and even more so when conservation biologists began thinking of insects as worthy of attention as well. About that time, estimates of the total number of insect species by entomologists such as Terry Erwin began to attract attention, as did ecological arguments about the importance of insects, such as those put forth by E. O. Wilson, especially about the importance of ants. At the time, as I recall it, there were two parts to the argument: 1) there are so darned …