• Question: why are wasps on the world ? I know that bees pollinate aswell as some other insects but I really don't like wasps and I was wondering what exactly they do on the world ? Thank you Holly xxx

    Asked by hollysciencekid to Roy, Rowena, Nicola, Kieren on 14 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Rowena Fletcher-Wood

      Rowena Fletcher-Wood answered on 14 Mar 2014:

      Interesting question Holly… reminds me of a question in the New Scientist magazine “Does anything eat wasps?” It was made into a little book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Does-Anything-Eat-Wasps-Questions/dp/1861979738

      The answer as to why we need wasps is that they are part of an ecosystem. They eat flies and other insects and therefore the wasp populations keep other populations under control. If the wasps were to be naturally replaced everything would be okay, but if you went around massacring wasps you would then probably get too many flies, which would cause other fly-eating populations like spiders to boom and then die off when they had overgrown the fly supply and starved. So basically getting rid of wasps could have profound affects on food chains. We need them to keep the world balanced.

    • Photo: Nicola Rogers

      Nicola Rogers answered on 15 Mar 2014:

      I don’t think we get to ‘choose’ what we need and what we don’t need on the planet! If there is space and a habitat for an animal within a given ecosystem something is likely to evolve to take advantage of that – and as Rowena says, if you get rid of wasps then this will change the balance of all the species within its food chain. I agree though – I don’t really like wasps either –

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