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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/03/climate-species-collapse-ecology-insects-nature-reserves-aoe>
"Daniel Janzen only began watching the insects – truly watching them – when his
ribcage was shattered. Nearly half a century ago, the young ecologist had been
out documenting fruit crops in a dense stretch of Costa Rican forest when he
fell in a ravine, landing on his back. The long lens of his camera punched up
through three ribs, snapping the bones into his thorax.
Slowly, he dragged himself out, crawling nearly two miles back to the research
hut. There were no immediate neighbours, no good roads, no simple solutions for
getting to a hospital.
Selecting a rocking chair on the porch, Janzen used a bedsheet to strap his
torso tightly to the frame. For a month, he sat, barely moving, waiting for his
bones to knit back together. And he watched.
In front of him was a world seething with life. Every branch of every tree
seemed to host its own small metropolis of creatures hunting, flying, crawling,
eating. The research facility lay in a patchwork of protected rainforest, dry
forest, cloud forest, mangroves and coastline covering an area the size of New
York, and astonishingly rich in biodiverse life. Here, the bugs gorged, coating
the leaf litter with a thick carpet of droppings.
But the real show was at night: for two hours each evening, the site got power
and a 25-watt bulb flickered on above the porch. Out of the forest darkness, a
tornado of insects would flock to its glow, spinning and dancing before the
light. Lit up, the side of the house would be “absolutely plastered with moths
– tens of thousands of them”, Janzen says.
Inspired, he decided to erect a sheet for a light trap with a camera – a common
way to document flying insect numbers and diversity. In that first photograph,
taken in 1978, the lit-up sheet is so thickly studded with moths that in places
the fabric is barely visible, transformed into what looks like densely
patterned, crawling wallpaper.
Scientists identified an astonishing 3,000 species from that light trap, and
the trajectory of Janzen’s career was transformed, from the study of seeds to a
lifetime specialising in the forest’s barely documented populations of
caterpillars and moths.
Now 86, Janzen still works in the same research hut in the Guanacaste
conservation area, alongside his longtime collaborator, spouse and fellow
ecologist, Winnie Hallwachs. But in the forest that surrounds them, something
has changed. Trees that once crawled with insects lie uncannily still.
The hum of wild bees has faded, and leaves that should be chewed to the stem
hang whole and un-nibbled. It is these glossy, untouched leaves that most spook
Janzen and Hallwachs. They are more like a pristine greenhouse than a living
ecosystem: a wilderness that has been fumigated and left sterile. Not a forest,
but a museum."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
