Study says bugs are worth billions

By Aussiegirl

Regardless of their economic value, I have decided that I shall continue to swat flies.

Study says bugs are worth billions - Science - MSNBC.com

Bugs plug $57 billion into U.S. economy
And that’s a conservative estimate, entomologists say.
John Losey, a Cornell University associate professor of entomology, studies multicolored Asian lady beetles in his lab in Ithaca, N.Y., on Friday. Losey conducted a study that says insects contribute more than $57 billion a year to the U.S. economy. Think twice before you swat a fly or squash a bug: A new study says insects contribute more than $57 billion a year to the U.S. economy.
And that is a very conservative estimate, said John Losey, a Cornell University associate professor of entomology who conducted the study, published in the current issue of the journal BioScience.
“Most insects tirelessly perform functions that improve our environment and lives in ways that scientists are only beginning to understand,” said Losey, who wrote the study with Mace Vaughan of the Portland, Ore.-based Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.
There are more than 1 million named insect species — and probably an equal number unidentified — making them the most abundant life form on the planet.

[...] “Most people think of insects and go yuck. They think about mosquitoes and flies. They don’t realize just about everything in life is affected some way, somehow, by insects,” he said