http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/where-have-all-insects-gone Scientists have tracked alarming declines in domesticated honey bees, monarch butterflies, and lightning bugs. But few have paid attention to the moths, hover flies, beetles, and countless other insects that buzz and flitter through the warm months. "We have a pretty good track record of ignoring most noncharismatic species," which most insects are, says Joe Nocera, an ecologist at the University of New Brunswick in Canada. [...] A new set of long-term data is coming to light, this time from a dedicated group of mostly amateur entomologists who have tracked insect abundance at more than 100 nature reserves in western Europe since the 1980s. Over that time the group, the Krefeld Entomological Society, has seen the yearly insect catches fluctuate, as expected. But in 2013 they spotted something alarming. When they returned to one of their earliest trapping sites from 1989, the total mass of their catch had fallen by nearly 80%. Perhaps it was a particularly bad year, they thought, so they set up the traps again in 2014. The numbers were just as low. Through more direct comparisons, the group -- which had preserved thousands of samples over 3 decades -- found dramatic declines across more than a dozen other sites. Such losses reverberate up the food chain. "If you're an insect-eating bird living in that area, four-fifths of your food is gone in the last quarter-century, which is staggering," says Dave Goulson, an ecologist at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, who is working with the Krefeld group to analyze and publish some of the data. "One almost hopes that it's not representative -- that it's some strange artifact." https://phys.org/news/2017-05-seas-coastal.html https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01362-7
On 05/21/2017 06:24 PM, grarpamp wrote:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/where-have-all-insects-gone
[ ... ] the Krefeld
Entomological Society, has seen the yearly insect catches fluctuate, as expected. But in 2013 they spotted something alarming. When they returned to one of their earliest trapping sites from 1989, the total mass of their catch had fallen by nearly 80%. Perhaps it was a particularly bad year, they thought, so they set up the traps again in 2014. The numbers were just as low. Through more direct comparisons, the group -- which had preserved thousands of samples over 3 decades -- found dramatic declines across more than a dozen other sites. Such losses reverberate up the food chain. "If you're an insect-eating bird living in that area, four-fifths of your food is gone in the last quarter-century, which is staggering," says Dave Goulson, an ecologist at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, who is working with the Krefeld group to analyze and publish some of the data. "One almost hopes that it's not representative -- that it's some strange artifact."
https://phys.org/news/2017-05-seas-coastal.html https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01362-7
It is representative, a not-strange artifact of the proliferation of modern "bird and mammal friendly" super-insecticides used in agriculture and landscape applications. Collapsing bird populations reflect an entire food chain under chemical attack. http://www.tfsp.info/ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v511/n7509/full/nature13642.html http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/popular-pesticides-linked-drops... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/american-songbirds-are-bei... Four years ago: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/apr/29/bee-harming-pesticides-b... https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/victory-for-bees-as-europea... I have seen claims that Europe's bird populations are already rising in the hardest hit areas, but four years is /very/ early to look for results. It took 40 years for the North American brown pelican to recover from the impact of DDT exposure. Suppression of insect food resources by toxin-intensive factory farming is an obvious explanation of collapsing bird populations. But as far as I know, nobody is even looking at the impact of endocrine disruptors and carcinogens (like glyhphosate) on wild birds populations. :o/
entire food chain under chemical attack. impact of DDT exposure. impact of endocrine disruptors and carcinogens (like glyhphosate)
No doubt. Ever since dawn of industrial age humans been pumping manufactured not-found-in-nature reactive molecules and waste by the megaton into nature. Top that off with a nice layer of outright nuclear background radiation laid down from the 40's-80's. That anything can reproduce anymore with all the induced pressure and not-yet-expressed mutations...
On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 08:12:55PM -0400, grarpamp wrote:
entire food chain under chemical attack. impact of DDT exposure. impact of endocrine disruptors and carcinogens (like glyhphosate)
No doubt. Ever since dawn of industrial age humans been pumping manufactured not-found-in-nature reactive molecules and waste by the megaton into nature. Top that off with a nice layer of outright nuclear background radiation laid down from the 40's-80's. That anything can reproduce anymore with all the induced pressure and not-yet-expressed mutations...
According to local myths, before the final crash of humans in their present form, first will disappear bees and garlic. About the nature pollution, not sure what part of this is joke: === - Did you know beer and water contain female hormones? - WTF? - After usage you talk nonsense and your driving skills greatly degrade. ===
On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 07:18:14PM -0400, Steve Kinney wrote:
On 05/21/2017 06:24 PM, grarpamp wrote:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/where-have-all-insects-gone
[ ... ]
the Krefeld
Entomological Society, has seen the yearly insect catches fluctuate, as expected. But in 2013 they spotted something alarming. When they returned to one of their earliest trapping sites from 1989, the total mass of their catch had fallen by nearly 80%. Perhaps it was a particularly bad year, they thought, so they set up the traps again in 2014. The numbers were just as low. Through more direct comparisons, the group -- which had preserved thousands of samples over 3 decades -- found dramatic declines across more than a dozen other sites. Such losses reverberate up the food chain. "If you're an insect-eating bird living in that area, four-fifths of your food is gone in the last quarter-century, which is staggering," says Dave Goulson, an ecologist at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, who is working with the Krefeld group to analyze and publish some of the data. "One almost hopes that it's not representative -- that it's some strange artifact."
https://phys.org/news/2017-05-seas-coastal.html https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01362-7
It is representative, a not-strange artifact of the proliferation of modern "bird and mammal friendly" super-insecticides used in agriculture and landscape applications. Collapsing bird populations reflect an entire food chain under chemical attack.
http://www.tfsp.info/ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v511/n7509/full/nature13642.html http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/popular-pesticides-linked-drops... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/american-songbirds-are-bei...
Four years ago:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/apr/29/bee-harming-pesticides-b... https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/victory-for-bees-as-europea...
I have seen claims that Europe's bird populations are already rising in the hardest hit areas, but four years is /very/ early to look for results. It took 40 years for the North American brown pelican to recover from the impact of DDT exposure.
Suppression of insect food resources by toxin-intensive factory farming is an obvious explanation of collapsing bird populations. But as far as I know, nobody is even looking at the impact of endocrine disruptors and carcinogens (like glyhphosate) on wild birds populations.
Surely compulsory usage logging, centralised db and public publishing should be mandatory at this point (i.e. possible to achieve legislatively) now that glyphosate is out of patent in all countries? The usual proxy of course is sales, but increasing locality data accuracy should be high on the agenda for "the greens" if they want to achieve something useful with the decaying State infrastructure. Would be quite the feather in the political wanna be's cap... trivial to implement in this day of tech abundance too.
participants (4)
-
Georgi Guninski -
grarpamp -
Steve Kinney -
Zenaan Harkness