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Author Topic: Where have all the Insects gone?  (Read 4601 times)

mati

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Where have all the Insects gone?
« on: May 18, 2017, 12:08:16 AM »
long time passing...

well a very disturbing paper found in science magazine.
I'm beting on neo-nicotinides, but Im sure climate changes must also be
having some effect.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/where-have-all-insects-gone
and so it goes

be cause

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Re: Where have all the Insects gone?
« Reply #1 on: May 18, 2017, 01:18:58 AM »
here in N. Ireland the main culprit is the mass killing of ivy .. Hedra helix on millions of trees ,mostly Ash .. Fraxinus exelsior . This is being encouraed by Govt. departments and the National Trust , among others , at the cost of 10's of billions of insects and 10's of thousands of tons of berries in late winter and spring .
  one example is moths .. 250 of the550 species of smaller british moths are dependent on ivy during their life cycle . Overwintering bees use it as their one source of pollen and more importantly nectar in the autumn . Summer reserves went on breeding .. the winter larder is being destroyed .
Bats and birds lose food , habitat and shelter and the whole countryside (and towns ) are losing their vitality and birdsong .
Farming here is mostly grass-based , so chemicals are not a major cause of the decline.The farmers (the main ivy killers)are destroying a major ally as the ecology of ivy yields astonishing amounts of free food to the land as the trees ivy grows on are guano producing towers of plenty .
 I was visited by a Department of Agriculture inspector last week who went out of her way to recommend that I kill the ivy on my trees .. I asked her to listen to the crecendo of bird song around me and pointed out how much was the result of my ivy ..
Conflict is the root of all evil , for being blind it does not see whom it attacks . Yet it always attacks the Son Of God , and the Son of God is you .

oren

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Re: Where have all the Insects gone?
« Reply #2 on: May 18, 2017, 07:18:06 AM »
Wow. Human stupidity at its finest.

nicibiene

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Re: Where have all the Insects gone?
« Reply #3 on: May 18, 2017, 10:12:16 AM »
We live here in a natural, colder mountain area in the east of Germany with no big agricultural farms around. Most farms have cows here, there are a lot of meadows with wildflowers.

Last week our cherries flowered, these days the apple trees start and a lot of dandelions glowing yellow in the sun. But there are frightening low insects visiting our meadow and our trees.  :'( Just wondered last week and yesterday I realized the empty dandelion and decided to have a closer look today... only a few insects on tour...
« Last Edit: May 18, 2017, 10:32:24 AM by nicibiene »
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” –“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” Albert Einstein

TerryM

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Re: Where have all the Insects gone?
« Reply #4 on: May 18, 2017, 11:39:49 AM »
The most notable die off here in Southern Ontario has been the Monarch Butterflies. I saw one very raggedy survivor on a Lake Erie Beach a few years back, and this is a species that used to darken the skies when a million or so would suddenly take flight.


Cleaning the screens of dead silverfish used to be a yearly chore at Port Dover. Not as pretty as the Monarchs, but just as gone.


Ban neonicotinoids for a decade, see if it helps.


Terry

nicibiene

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Re: Where have all the Insects gone?
« Reply #5 on: May 18, 2017, 11:42:43 AM »
After I already read about the possible effects of rising CO2 on plants I had to learn, that there is nothing to hope that we will get a nice fertilized greenhouse full of life. One effect is, that not only the plant as a whole, but also the nutritiousity of pollen seems to decrease drastically. https://phys.org/news/2016-04-co2-protein-crucial-pollen-source.html

I have found also a very large article that seems to be not so bad to get into the entire thing a little: http://what-when-how.com/insects/greenhouse-gases-global-warming-and-insects-insects/

All is a system. If plants change due to changing athmospheric composition, the question is, if it wouldn't harm the insects first, birds second and us third. As here in my case is no agricultural industry to blame, there must be other reasons for insects disappearance too....

Another interesting question is how elevated CO2 levels might change the behaviour and health of insects generally? They seem to have a strong sense for that gas, helps them to find plants or humans (mosquitos). Maybe they get confused In their senses basically?  What about their breathing system? As they have no lungs they are not able to increase their frequency of breathing actively, like we do... unfortunately not free available:
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.ento.53.103106.093402

Also nice to read (if I find sone time) http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1519-566X2011000200001
« Last Edit: May 18, 2017, 12:20:01 PM by nicibiene »
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” –“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” Albert Einstein

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Where have all the Insects gone?
« Reply #6 on: May 18, 2017, 02:45:24 PM »
Hummm.  "My" mosquito population seems to be doing quite well, as is the carpenter bee population (to my shed's dismay).  It's not hard to unintentionally find tics in the woods and intentionally find fleas on our cat (with multiple flea combings each day).  We grew parsley for butterflies this spring (in pots so the moles won't get the roots) and have a couple green chrysalises 'just stuck there doing nothing' as a result, although I'm sure the butterfly population is less than in the past.

Our green frogs seem to have lots of moths to eat (we get to watch them on windows), and there seem to be more of them (frogs) since I stopped using Round-Up on poison ivy 5 or 6 years ago (I now use a shovel). 
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

AbruptSLR

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Re: Where have all the Insects gone?
« Reply #7 on: May 26, 2017, 07:47:03 PM »
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

jai mitchell

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Re: Where have all the Insects gone?
« Reply #8 on: May 29, 2017, 11:40:24 PM »
 :'(
Haiku of Futures Passed
My "burning embers"
are not tri-color bar graphs
+3C today

sidd

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Re: Where have all the Insects gone?
« Reply #9 on: August 14, 2020, 10:50:00 PM »
Moran at livescience: Some better news for the USA:

"we reviewed over 5,000 sets of data on arthropods across North America, covering thousands of species and dozens of habitats over decades of time. We found, in essence, no change in population sizes."

"These results don't mean that insects are fine. Indeed, I believe there is good evidence that some species of insects are in decline and in danger of extinction."

https://www.livescience.com/insect-apocalypse-explained.html

paper: doi: 10.1038/s41559-020-1269-4

sidd