Gardens support an enormous diversity of invertebrates whose welfare is affected by pesticide use, habitat management and the practices of garden owners who may not realize their impact.
Garden invertebrate welfare extends far beyond the familiar concern for bees, encompassing the thousands of species of beetles, flies, moths, bugs, spiders, centipedes and other invertebrates whose welfare and ecological functions gardens either support or undermine. Chemical pesticides cause deaths that, in light of growing evidence for invertebrate pain experience, may represent welfare harm on a significant scale. Habitat management — leaving leaf litter, log piles, areas of bare soil and diverse plantings — supports the behavioral needs of invertebrates that require specific microhabitats at different life stages. Each gardening decision aggregates across millions of UK gardens to produce population-level effects on invertebrate welfare and ecology.