Doug Tallamy in Michigan on March 8, 2009

Ecologist Doug Tallamy gave the keynote at the 22nd Michigan Wildflower Conference on March 8, 2009. It was exciting to hear him. His book is one of the most import books of the decade.

Here's an excerpt of a review by Nancy Cutbirth Small (with her permission):

Douglas Tallamy’s Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens (Timber Press) ... focuses on using native plants to sustain the herbivorous insects that transfer the sun’s energy from plants to birds and other creatures. …

Chapter 12 “What Should I Plant?” is especially helpful, for it ranks and discusses the 20 genera of woody plants most valuable to Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). Lepidopterans and their caterpillars form an important part of young birds’ diets. The number of species supported by each genus is amazing: Oaks, which head the list, support 517 species of moths and butterflies as well as walkingsticks and katydids, “hundreds of species of gall wasps,” bess beetles, and large stag beetle species. Hickories, though halfway down the list, nevertheless support 200 Lepidoptera species alone.

Tallamy illustrates his book with his own beautiful and dramatic photographs of insects--feeding, mating, protecting themselves, guarding their eggs or nymphs, being parasitized. The last major section of the book is devoted to a “portrait gallery” of herbivorous insects (and some of their arthropod predators), with short discussions of each. Strange, imposing, elegant, beautiful—and sometimes all of these—the insects shown here and elsewhere in the book help make the author’s passionate argument for saving these creatures on which so much depends. …

Readers are certain to find Tallamy’s book revealing and inspiring.