Because most invertebrates are so small we hardly notice or know them but these little “spineless” creatures “run the world” and they are vital to successful restoration. On the other hand some invertebrate can spell ruin! Invertebrates (all living creatures without backbones) represent at least 80% of all earth’s biodiversity or 95% of what is on land. Their sheer diversity is astounding. They are abundant and everywhere. They are beautiful, fascinating and awe-inspiring. Together with plants and fungi they are the foundations of all biodiversity. Arthropods are the most ecologically vital phylum. If invertebrates disappeared tomorrow, humans would soon follow. They control the major biogeochemical cycles, decompose waste, pollinate plants and are an integral and controlling part of all food webs. In fact, the evolution of land plants throughout time has been tightly connected to the evolution especially of insect pollinators. Insects pollinate some 85% of flowering plant species. They interact with other invertebrates, plants, fungi and vertebrates. They provide a range of regulating, cultural, supporting and provisioning ecosystem services to humankind without which we cannot function or survive. Arthropods invented silk As famously quoted by Theodosius Dobzhansky: “Nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of evolution”. Most of the modern invertebrate phyla trace back at least 545 million years in the fossil record to the beginnings of the conquest of land by animal. This “mysterious” sudden Cambrian explosion, a major stage in the earth’s evolutionary history, was the first major emergence of biodiversity on earth producing the myriad body forms we still see today from the simplest to the most complex and elaborate. Many representative lineages occur at Springbrook contributing to its World Heritage values. THIS PAGE IS INCOMPLETE |
