The world of insects - interactive workshops for Turkish students!

Each of the partner schools has started a series of workshops related to the topic of our project “What's up Mr. Bug?”

Despite the difficulties related to distance learning, the great biology teacher Mr. Erkan Urey managed to conduct extremely interesting classes for Turkish students. See the photo gallery and presentation introducing the world of insects.

WHAT’S UP MY BUG İNSECTS AS THE WONDER OF ECOSYSTEM

Benefits of Insects 

Using pesticide and insecticides cause negative environmental change and disturbance of natural balance.

The balance of nature depends on the activities of parasites and predators, the majority of which are species of insects. The insect ecology is the scientific study of how insects, individually or as a community, interact with the surrounding environment or ecosystem.

Insects play significant roles in the ecology of the world due to their vast diversity of form, function and life-style; their considerable biomass; and their interaction with plant life, other organisms and the environment. Since they are the major contributor to biodiversity in the majority of habitats, except in the sea, they accordingly play a variety of extremely important ecological roles in the many functions of an eco-system. Insects play crucial roles in ecosystem functioning as pollinators and insects are often the first decomposers of dead plants and animals, and introduce microorganisms that continue this process and release nutrients for new plant growth.

Insects form an important part of the food chain, especially for entomophagous vertebrates such as many mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles. Insects play an important role in maintaining community structure and composition; in the case of animals by transmission of diseases, predation and parasitism, and in the case of plants, through phytophagy and by plant propagation through pollination and seed dispersal. From an anthropocentric point of view, insects compete with humans; they consume as much as 10% of the food produced by man and infect one in six humans with a pathogen.

None of the terrestrial ecosystems could exist in their current form without insects. Insects often have very specialized requirements, so each species is typically found within a particular microsite, such as in the soil, under bark, or along the underside leaf veins of a particular tree species. Each also has a specific rhythm as to time of year and day when they are most active. Much of the diversity of insects and plants in terrestrial ecosystems can be attributed to the extensive interactions between these two groups, both through herbivory and pollination. Insects are the major herbivores in most terrestrial ecosystems, accounting for up to 80% of the total plant consumption in the syste.

Tanacetum vulgare (tansy), Artemisia spp. (wormwood), Urtica dioca (stinging nettle), Quassia amara and Picranea excels (bitter tree, kavaska) are effective against sucking insects, especially aphids. and Ephestia kuehniella). (Tunç and Erler, 2000) In the literature screening, red spider (Tetranychus urticae), flour moth (Ephestia kuehniella) and aphid (Macrosiphum rosae) were not found with tobacco juice.