Generally unloved and disregarded, insects are in fact the most successful group of animals on Earth and have been for more than 400 million years. With a million described species (and a lot more still out there to find) and numbers measured in the quintillions, insects underpin almost all terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. But in the last few decades, populations all over the world have collapsed with terrifying speed. The declines are so severe that we stand on the brink of total ecosystem collapse. After all, as Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson pointed out; ‘these are the little animals that run the world’.
Princeton University Press: https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/insect-apocalypse