An estimated 60 billion bugs were lost during the Black Summer bushfires in Australian rainforests and it’s having a major impact on the health of the ecosystem.
Scientists from La Trobe University studied 52 sites in East Gippsland in Victoria and southern NSW that were severely impacted by bushfires in 2019-2020.
About 75 per cent of invertebrates visible to the naked eye had disappeared entirely a year after the natural disaster.
Rainforests make up just one per cent of all forests in Australia and lead author Professor Heloise Gibb fears up to 120 trillion invertebrates could have been lost across the country.
“With this kind of really severe fire we might lose species from the ecosystem completely or they may go extinct,” Prof Gibb told AAP.
Snails, cockroaches, spiders and other creepy-crawlies play a vital role as a source of food for native animals like lizards, small mammals and birds while also breaking down litter and debris.
Prof Gibb said it was unclear when or even if invertebrate populations would recover and she was concerned species previously unrecorded by scientists may also have been lost altogether.
“With increasing climate warming and so on, it’s much more likely we’ll have more of these and that this risk will become greater,” she added.
AAP 2023