Wind Turbines kill birds. The Huron Mountains and Highlands, are a diverse biome containing Highlands, Cedar and Hemlock lowlands, Boreal Forests, wetlands and multitudes of streams, temporary wetlands, Beaver ponds … Prime bird habitat, and Insect habitat. What happens if thousands of the birds are killed off by turbines?
Birds eat 400 to 500 million tons of insects annually
Along with spiders, insectivorous birds play a vital role in consuming insects that would otherwise destroy forests or crops
July 9, 2018 | Springer
Birds around the world eat 400 to 500 million metric tons of beetles, flies, ants, moths, aphids, grasshoppers, crickets and other anthropods per year. The research highlights the important role birds play in keeping plant-eating insect populations under control.
Birds around the world eat 400 to 500 million metric tonnes of beetles, flies, ants, moths, aphids, grasshoppers, crickets and other anthropods per year. These numbers have been calculated in a study led by Martin Nyffeler of the University of Basel in Switzerland. The research, published in Springer’s journal The Science of Nature, highlights the important role birds play in keeping plant-eating insect populations under control.
Forest-dwelling birds consume around 75 per cent of the insects eaten in total by birds which make up about 300 million tonnes of insects per year. About 100 million tonnes are eaten by birds in savanna areas, grasslands and croplands, and those living in the deserts and Arctic tundra. Birds actively hunt insects especially during the breeding season, when they need protein-rich prey to feed to their nestlings.
“The estimates presented in this paper emphasize the ecological and economic importance of insectivorous birds in suppressing potentially harmful insect pests on a global scale — especially in forested areas,” explains Nyffeler, who says that this is especially so for tropical, temperate and boreal forest ecosystems.
“Only a few other predator groups such as spiders and entomophagous insects (including in particular predaceous ants) can keep up with the insectivorous birds in their capacity to suppress plant-eating insect populations on a global scale,” he adds.
Journal Reference: Martin Nyffeler, Çağan H. Şekercioğlu, Christopher J. Whelan. Insectivorous birds consume an estimated 400–500 million tons of prey annually. The Science of Nature, 2018; 105 (7-8) DOI: 10.1007/s00114-018-1571-z