Status Updates From Bringing Nature Home: How N...

When I compared natives to aliens [plants] in terms of their production of Lepidoptera (butterflies & moths) [whose caterpillars feed on the leaves] and sawfly caterpillars-the largest diet component of insectivorous birds [and what most birds feed to their nestlings]-I found that the native plants in the study supported a whopping 35 times more caterpillar biomass than the aliens..No wonder our birds are struggling.

The first part of this book offers a very enlightening primer on ecology, recent scientific thought on biodiversity & why it matters: it makes ecosystems more resilient --less likely to collapse -- more productive -- of oxygen, plants, animals, water filtration, weather buffering, carbon sequestration etc. -- and less susceptible to takeover by aggressive introduced species (which DT calls alien invaders).