Best-of Beneficial Plants and Insects - A Way to Garden with Margaret Roach - December 31, 2018

Beneficial Insects Best-of: What are insects thinking–or if that sounds like I’m anthropomorphizing, what at least are insects desiring? The more we humans seek pollinator connections in our gardens, and strive to create a piece of habitat and not just a purely pretty backyard, the more we want to get inside their heads and understand their cravings, right? 

I have the pleasure of interviewing entomologists and ecologists pretty regularly on the program, and in 2018 a few conversations touched on my a question about what insects are after. The year ends in my northern garden with outdoor insect activity at its low point, but I’ve nevertheless been thinking of them, and of some key takeaways from interviews this past year about “the little things that run the world,” as Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson famously called insects and other invertebrates. Today’s show recalls some of what I learned about insects in 2018.