If we were to wipe out insects alone on this planet, the rest of life and humanity with it would mostly disappear from the land. Within a few months.

If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.

The variety of genes on the planet in viruses exceeds, or is likely to exceed, that in all of the rest of life combined.

Ants are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially dependent upon them.

Ants are the dominant insects of the world, and they've had a great impact on habitats almost all over the land surface of the world for more than 50-million years.

In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems.