Would You Study the Hairs on a Fly?

WRITTEN BY RIO CONSTANTINO GRAPHICS BY JON BONIFACIO

HOW MANY CHILDREN grow up wanting to be entomologists? If I were to narrow the survey down to only kids interested in being scientists, I think most of them would want to study something like black holes, or dinosaurs, or the cure for cancer. But what about insects? Would anyone want to study the hairs on a fly?

Last April, I had an interview with Ronniel Pedales, a young entomologist currently teaching at the Institute of Biology in the University of the Philippines – Diliman. Initially, I wanted to ask him about an article published by The Guardian, titled “Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature’.” The article summarized the findings of a scientific report which collated worldwide data on insect populations, and which found an alarming trend: insects were disappearing at calamitous rates. The most affected were the Lepidopterans, Hymenopterans, and Coleopterans. In other words, butterflies moths, wasps, bees, ants, and humble beetles, were dying in droves.

Or so the report said. The authors proclaimed an ominous trend, yet most of their data came from Western sources. They cited not one study from the Philippines. Not a single one, despite our country being a foremost of biodiversity in the world, as well as being a center of rapacious ecological destruction. So I wrote Mr. Pedales an email asking if he knew of any study monitoring insect populations in the Philippines, and his reply was: “There aren’t any, at least not that I’m aware of.”

The problem is the lack of basic research. There’s no foundation of taxonomic work to base robust generalizations on. There are descriptions of insect species going back to the 1940s, but what’s there is patchy, and definitely incomplete. That a lot is missing can be inferred simply by comparing what we have with those of other countries who have already done the work. According to Mr. Pedales, databases in Europe list over 11,000 named insect species, while in the Philippines, there are only around 2,800. Alarming, considering how renowned the country is for biodiversity around the globe.

It’s a problem because taxonomy is the science of naming, of giving species an identity. How can you study the

abundance and distribution of a specific insect if you can’t even identify it in the first place? Without knowing abundance and distribution, as well as a slew of other data, how can you plan for a species’ conservation? It would be like a bodyguard trying to protect a man whose name and face he knows nothing about.

What’s even more alarming is how low people generally regard taxonomy. If, in the hierarchy of glamor with which the public regards science, cancer research and astrophysics lie at the top, then taxonomy is likely somewhere near the dusty bottom, and the taxonomy of insects somewhere below that. In a popularity contest between the Philippine Eagle and any insect really, it’s clear who the winner would be.

This is not a situation we want the Philippines to find itself in. For one, it’s unjust to our taxonomists. Mr. Pedales, who specializes in the order Diptera, or flies, says that to accurately identify a fly species, it’s not enough to just rely on a picture. You also have to base identification on the individual hairs on a fly’s body, which differ by body segment, and which also vary in directionality. It’s difficult and tedious work.

For another, we need insects to survive. If insects disappear, so will the crops they pollinate, and so will the humans who eat those crops to survive. And I will bet, with utter certainty, that the Philippines is in the midst of an entomological, ecological disaster — but by how much? Which species of insects are the most affected? And where?

As much as other factors hamper taxonomy and entomology in the Philippines — the difficulty of fieldwork, for instance — it’s also a question of having enough warm bodies to tackle the problem. And given the overwhelming ratio of insects to entomologists, we’re going to need all the warm bodies we can get.

Thankfully, according to Mr. Pedales, there are more students taking up graduate courses in biology now than before. Scientists are also becoming increasingly open to collaboration with other fields. Maybe a few of those future biologists will be interested in studying the hairs on a fly, or something like it. As Mr. Pedales said, insects rule the world. It’s just about time we know who they really are. ●