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Insects Could Vanish Within a Century At Current Rate of Decline, Says Global Review (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The world's insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a "catastrophic collapse of nature's ecosystems," according to the first global scientific review. More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century. The planet is at the start of a sixth mass extinction in its history, with huge losses already reported in larger animals that are easier to study. But insects are by far the most varied and abundant animals, outweighing humanity by 17 times. They are "essential" for the proper functioning of all ecosystems, the researchers say, as food for other creatures, pollinators and recyclers of nutrients.
Insect population collapses have recently been reported in Germany and Puerto Rico, but the review strongly indicates the crisis is global. The researchers set out their conclusions in unusually forceful terms for a peer-reviewed scientific paper: "The [insect] trends confirm that the sixth major extinction event is profoundly impacting [on] life forms on our planet. The analysis, published in the journal Biological Conservation, says intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides. Urbanization and climate change are also significant factors. "One of the biggest impacts of insect loss is on the many birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that eat insects," the study says, noting a recent study in Puerto Rico where there was a 98% fall in ground insects over 35 years. Butterflies and moths are among the worst hit.
Insect population collapses have recently been reported in Germany and Puerto Rico, but the review strongly indicates the crisis is global. The researchers set out their conclusions in unusually forceful terms for a peer-reviewed scientific paper: "The [insect] trends confirm that the sixth major extinction event is profoundly impacting [on] life forms on our planet. The analysis, published in the journal Biological Conservation, says intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides. Urbanization and climate change are also significant factors. "One of the biggest impacts of insect loss is on the many birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that eat insects," the study says, noting a recent study in Puerto Rico where there was a 98% fall in ground insects over 35 years. Butterflies and moths are among the worst hit.
No Kendall, it's actually done by insects also. Bacteria, fungii, protozoa, single-celled organisms all play a role. Learn more about science, Republican children. Nicotinoid "weed killers" are chemical warfare on our food chain. We're killing it.
All of it.
No it will not, XKCD links are actually a source of the problem.
I like XKCD and all, but let get real for a minute, problems can hardly be summed up as such and are tantamount to nothing other than mudslinging. Unless someone is 100% in lock step with your beliefs on something then XKCD articles are mostly used to imply that dissenters are just ignorant morons. The problem is far more complex and what is even worse... XKCD's articles are better though of as a problem that all sides in every debate shares.
Everyone has confirmation bias, and all sides have people that will overlook the sins of their fellow compatriots because the ends really do justify the means. Take an politically polarized subject and you will find someone calling for criminal charges, fines, imprisonment, and even the death of those disagreeing with them. There is no faster proof of an unscientific moron than when someone trots out one of these following fallacies...
Consensus = Truth/Fact/Proof.
Correlation = Causation.
Gatekeeping qualifications... Only a certified, licensed, or recognized group/institution/team are allowed to have an opinion... except skeptics because their opinions are invalidated by the professionals that I happen to agree with.
Gaslighting people for not believing in something.
Asking for skeptics to prove a negative, or asking that they provide scientific evidence for their position when the evidence being unable to convince them is the evidence.
Acceptance of controvertible evidence, scare or abundant, as good enough to be proof as though it were incontrovertible evidence.
I don't consider name calling or generic aspersions as proof someone does not know what they are talking about. Even Einstein said... Only two things are infinite... the universe and human stupidity and I am not sure about the former.
People are stupid... epicly stupid, and human stupidity is constantly being underrated. Especially proven by all the pseudo scientists guilty of the fallacies I mentioned above.
Hopefully XKCD will keep being nothing more than a funny and witty little site where groups of pseudo intellectuals can mentally masturbate with each other.
The insect loss rate is a grossly inaccurate, and covers tiny little chunk of land.
"The 98% ground insect loss" between 1976 and 2012 was taken from a research plot of land in the Luquillo Mountains.
This plot of land was DESTROYED in 1990 by Hurricane Hugo, as was the insect and animal populations. https://pr.water.usgs.gov/public/webb/hurricane_hugo.html
The paper attempts to blame this on an increase in temperature and max/min temperatures without any conclusive evidence, without any good data points, and I imagine that its an attempt tot secure funding by the massive amounts of 'Climate Change' money there is. FYI, the only data points that are year on year contiguous that they have (2012 and 2013) actually show a small growth in the population.
Climate Change is real and terrible, but the science behind this crap is utterly disgraceful.
For around the past 5 years, I've generally noticed simply less insects around in places I would traditionally expect them.
Obviously they are still around but there just /seems/ to be less.
I am firmly, firmly in the camp of the post, I definitely believe we've begun the 6'th mass extinction. It's gonna be a doozy.
It's been the last couple of years of significant decline only. I'm a pilot, and as an unavoidable side effect of flying I kill lots of insects, which afterwards need to be cleaned from the plane. Cleaning has become noticeably easier over the last few years. However, I'm quite sure that this is a local artificial process, i.e. more advanced (less natural) agriculture in this area.
Climate change is going to make an impact in future, especially if we're going to see the typical +5C up within a few decades as has happened a couple of times in the (long) past, but I'm quite sure humans can help seed some bugs from here to there to make the transition more smooth than it would otherwise be.
Insects aren't going to disappear.
When they say Four aquatic taxa are imperilled and have already lost a large proportion of species, that means that some of them have already disappeared. They are not saying that they will all disappear. But in Luquillo where there have been large population drops observed, these have been accompanied by parallel decreases in Luquillo’s insectivorous lizards, frogs, and birds.
It's not worth the hyperbole and panic.
The observed collapse of a food web in some areas. It's not hyperbole, and panic is justified, unless you're already in your late 80s or have terminal cancer.
Funny you should mention xkcd... https://xkcd.com/1732/
is obvious, if somewhat cynical. Stop using new pesticides. Get used to reduced yields and higher prices of food. There will be famines in the 3rd world. It is inevitable. The human population on our Earth is already well past the line where it can be fed safely. The first few decades will be the hardest. But a century in the future, our descendants will thank us for having evaded the looming catastrophe.
What I can tell you is there here in Northern Ontario, Canada, when I used to go fishing as a boy (~35 years ago) our truck would be covered with insect guts before we even got to our destination 50 miles away. You would be eaten alive by flies and mosquitoes at the destination until you got out onto the water.
Nowadays, we can go and do the same trip and it's not apparent we've hit even a single bug on the way. And bugs at the shoreline are hardly a nuisance anymore, relatively speaking.
And it's not just insects. I can go on a trip in the bush and not see any animals, not even birds sometimes.
I can't speak for anywhere else in the world, but something is very wrong with this.
Whether global warming is true or not ...
Whether gravity is true or not, global warming's been measured.
Yep, warming.
You read the materials and methods section?
An you found they used 6 data points?
I'll copy the relevant part of the section here:
Arthropod Samples.
Lister (22) sampled arthropods within the Luquillo forest during July 1976 and January 1977. Following the same procedures and using the same study area, arthropod abundances were again estimated during July 2011 and January 2012 using both sticky-traps and sweep netting. Our 10 traps were the same size (34 × 24 cm) as Lister’s (22), and also utilized Tanglefoot as the sticky substance. Traps were laid out on the ground in the same-sized grid (30 × 24 m), and also left uncovered for 12 h between dawn and dusk before all captured insects were removed and stored in alcohol. Hoop sizes of our sweep nets (30-cm diameter) matched those used by Lister (22). Body lengths of all captured arthropods were measured to the nearest 0.5 mm using a dissecting scope and ocular micrometer. Regression equations were used to estimate individual dry weights from body lengths (142, 143).
Anolis Abundance.
To compare Anolis densities with Lister’s (22) estimates from July 1976 and January 1977, we sampled anoles within the same 15 × 15-m quadrat during July 2011 and January 2012. Following Lister (22), we used the Schnabel multiple recapture method (27) to estimate densities. However, instead of marking captured lizards by toe clipping, we used Testor’s enamel paint to create small (2 mm) spots with different color combinations directly above the dorsal base of the tail.
Climate Data.
We analyzed climate data taken at two locations in the Luquillo forest: the United States Forest Service El Verde Field Station and the Bisley Lower meteorological tower, which is part of the Luquillo Critical Zone Observatory. The El Verde station lies 5 km southwest of our study area (18.3211 N, 65.8200 W), at an elevation of 350 m. The upper Bisley Tower is located 3.2 km southeast of our study area (18.3164 N, 65.7453 W) at 352 m in elevation. Temperature data for the El Verde station span 37 y, from 1978 to 2015 (Fig. 1A), and for the Bisley station 21 y from 1993 to 2014 (Fig. 1B). Given that the highest ambient temperatures for a given area should have the greatest impact on fitness, especially for ectotherms (144), daily maximum temperatures were utilized in our analyses. Climate data for the Estacion de Biologia Chamela were obtained from www.ibiologia.unam.mx/ebchamela/www/clima.html.
Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Data.
Data sets from the Luquillo long-term ecological research (LTER) online Data Center were downloaded and analyzed for trends in population abundances over time. Detailed methods employed in the various studies can be found at the LTER Data Center website (https://luq.lter.network/luquillo-information-management-system-luq-ims).
Canopy arthropods.
Data were collected by Schowalter (23) near the El Verde field station between February 1991 and June 2009. Several articles have analyzed these samples with respect to invertebrate diversity, functional groups, arthropod composition in gap and intact forest, and recovery from disturbance (145), but none have looked for trends in overall abundance. Here we summed all arthropods sampled each year across taxa, forest type, and tree genera.
Walking sticks.
We analyzed data from a census of walking sticks (Lamponius portoricensis) carried out by Willig et al. (24) between 1991 and 2014 in the 16-ha Luquillo Forest Dynamics Plot (LFDP) near the El Verde Field Station. Sampling was conducted during the wet and dry seasons and captured individuals were classified as adults or juveniles. To analyze walking stick abundance through time, we summed all juveniles and adults across seasons and land classes.
E. coqui abundance.
We analyze census data for the Puerto Rican frog E. coqui taken by Woolbright (29, 30) between 1987 and 1997 at study areas n
It's not just one research plot in the Luquillo Mountains. There are cases of decline across the world.