As Our Cicada Overlords Arrive, The Caterpillars Are The Real Winners

Reset with Sasha-Ann Simons

What does a bird think when it sees billions of cicadas flying around? Lunchtime. More than just a nuisance, periodical cicadas are an important player in the forest ecosystem. A 2023 study published in the journal Science, found that 80 species of birds started eating cicadas instead of caterpillars during the Brood X emergence, which had an effect on trees where the caterpillars live. Reset learns how the current eruption of cicadas affects the forest ecosystem, and the ripple effects we could be seeing for years to come. We talk to ecologist Zoe Getman-Pickering and Karen Weigert, director of Loyola University Chicago’s Baumhart Center for Social Enterprise and Responsibility. For a full archive of Reset interviews, head over to wbez.org/reset.