Join Mark Millan to learn about the fascinating world of insects and their role in promoting biodiversity.
Climate change, habitat loss, intensive agriculture, industrialization, invasive species, novel pathogens, and pollution are exerting increase pressure on native flora and fauna across the planet. Paradoxically, while rampant concrete and sprawling cities are inherently bad news for wildlife, urban green spaces like parks and gardens offer a potential refuge for a variety of plants and animals, including bees, butterflies and beetles.
This is important since, like birds, bats and other animals, insects have suffered serious global and local declines in numbers and species richness over recent years. Moreover, while they don’t have quite the same aura as giant pandas or cuddly koalas, there’s more to bugs than annoying wasps and wretched greenflies.
Join Mark Millan to hear about the important services that insects provide, such as:
- pollinating flowers, bushes and trees
- providing food for birds, frogs, bats, hedgehogs
- recycling leaves and other debris to fertilize the earth
- consuming pests of flowers and vegetables (aphids, plant-chewing bugs, slugs and mildew).
In view of the above, it would seem like a good idea to nab insects with a camera rather than a rolled-up newspaper, and this talk is based on the photographic documentation (2020 to 2024) of insects in Mark Millan’s own garden situated in the green belt West of Paris.
Speakers
-
Mark Millan
Mark Millan
Mark John Millan was born in Edinburgh. He originally studied Natural Sciences (Zoology and Ecology) at Cambridge but retrained thereafter in Neurosciences at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Munich, and he has continued his research into the causes, prevention and treatment of disorders of the brain in France where he has worked for more than 30 years. He has published more than 400 papers, been cited more than 30,000 times, and won several prizes. He frequently evokes ecosystems in his lectures since their damage and the resulting loss of biodiversity, together with climate change, have a negative impact on mental - and physical - health. Mark is also a keen photographer, exhibiting his work at various collective and solo exhibitions. Converging his professional and personal interests, he has photographically documented wildlife and in particular bees, butterflies and other insects in his partially re-wilded garden just outside Paris – around 500 have been documented. These photos are used as a basis for articles, blogs, talks and exhibitions that encourage people to do more to preserve biodiversity locally - as well as globally - with benefits for their own mental well-being as well as for nature itself.
For more info, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Millan
