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kassy

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #250 on: July 02, 2020, 02:54:25 PM »
Alarming long-term effects of insecticides weaken ant colonies

...

But so far, no data existed to show how exposure to low concentrations, which do not induce direct mortality, affect ants in the long run. The data, collected at the University of Bern in cooperation with Agroscope and the University of Neuchâtel, clearly demonstrate previously overlooked long-term effects, which are not detectable during the first year of colony development. The results are published in "Communications Biology", an Open-Access Journal of Nature. According to the authors, this study highlights the importance to develop sustainable agricultural practices that incorporate reduced use of agro-chemicals to prevent irreparable damages to natural ecosystems.

Worrying long-term impacts

Thiamethoxam has a clear negative impact on the health of ants. Thiamethoxam is a neonicotinoid insecticide used to combat pest insects that threaten our harvest. Unfortunately, there is more and more evidence showing that thiamethoxam and similar agro-chemicals have negative consequences for other beneficial insects, including ants and honey bees.

...

In the present work, colonies of black garden ants were chronically exposed to field realistic concentrations of thiamethoxam over 64 weeks. Colonies were raised in the laboratory from queens that were captured in the field. Before the first overwintering of the colonies no effect of neonicotinoid exposure on colony strength was visible. However, until the second overwintering it became apparent that colonies exposed to thiamethoxam were significantly smaller than control colonies. Because the number of workers is a very important factor for the success of an ant colony, the observed effects are most likely to compromise colony survivorship. Considering the important role of ants in natural ecosystems, our results indicate that neonicotinoids impose a threat to ecosystem functioning.

...

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-07/uob-ale070120.php

Long-term effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on ants
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-020-1066-2
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kassy

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #251 on: July 18, 2020, 10:40:09 PM »
About 94 per cent of wild bee and native plant species networks lost


Climate change and an increase in disturbed bee habitats from expanding agriculture and development in northeastern North America over the last 30 years are likely responsible for a 94 per cent loss of plant-pollinator networks, York University researchers found.

The researchers, corresponding author Professor Sandra Rehan of the Faculty of Science and grad student Minna Mathiasson of the University of New Hampshire, looked at plant-pollinator networks from 125 years ago through present day. The networks are comprised of wild bees and the native plants they historically rely on, although most of those have now been disrupted.

About 30 per cent of plant-pollinator networks were completely lost, which translates to a disappearance of either the bees, the plants or both. In another 64 per cent of the network loss, the wild bees, such as sweat or miner bees, or native plants, such as sumac and willow, are still present in the eco-system, but the bees no longer visit those plants. The association is gone.

The remaining six per cent of the plant-pollinator networks are stable or even thriving with pollinators such as small carpenter bees, which like broken stems for nest making.

"There are several reasons for the losses in the networks. Climate change is likely the biggest driver. We know that over the last 100 years or so annual temperatures have changed by two and a half degrees. This is enough to alter the time when certain native plants bloom," says Rehan.

"For a bee that's out for months on end or is a generalist pollinator, this isn't such a critical mismatch, but for a bee that's only out for two weeks of the year and only has a few floral hosts, this could be devastating." An increase in non-native species of bees and invasive species of plants, which have displaced some of the native species, is another reason for the decline in networks.

...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200716144740.htm
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Alexander555

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #252 on: August 02, 2020, 09:54:55 PM »
Some more stuff about te bees. I'm going to see if i can get some more bees over here. https://watchers.news/2020/07/30/bee-population-decline-threatens-major-crop-yields-in-u-s-and-global-food-security/

Alexander555

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #253 on: August 02, 2020, 10:02:09 PM »
I placed a home like this for the humblebees. What could i do extra for them, besides extra flowers ? https://www.tuinadvies.be/tuinwinkel/product/2256/hommel-kweekbak-professioneel

vox_mundi

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #254 on: August 02, 2020, 10:40:47 PM »
Bumblebee Habitats and Diets Change Over Their Lifecycle
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-bumblebee-habitats-diets-lifecycle.html

Bumblebees change their home ranges and dietary preferences after establishing nests, suggesting that diversified landscapes help support bee populations as their needs change during different phases of their lifecycle.

Cavigliasso P, Phifer CC, Adams EM, Flaspohler D, Gennari GP, Licata JA, et al. (2020) Spatio-temporal dynamics of landscape use by the bumblebee Bombus pauloensis (Hymenoptera: Apidae) and its relationship with pollen provisioning. PLoS ONE 15(7): e0216190
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0216190

-------------------------------

Observe what the bee's preference are.

Provide blooms during each season

Here in Connecticut these are the flowers most visited by bumblebees at our community garden

Blueberries - spring
Grape hyacinth - spring
Catmint - Spring
Thyme - spring
Borage - summer
Salvia - late spring
Echinacea - summer
Tomatoes - summer
Squash, cucumbers - summer
St John's wort - summer
Agastache - summer, fall
Joe Pye weed - summer
Milkweed - summer
Sunflowers - summer
Butterfly bush - summer fall
Oregano summer fall
Mint - summer fall
Zinnias - summer fall
Goldenrod - fall
Asters - fall

Don't expect the bumblebee queen to stay in the box if your winters are freezing.

I was a beekeeper in the 90's and 00's
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Alexander555

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #255 on: August 03, 2020, 10:19:21 PM »
We do have freezing in winter. But for what i can find on the internet the bumblebees are  the bees that can handle the cold the best. Do you maybe know when they use a tunnel below the surface as a nest. Do they have like several tunnels for ventilation, or would it just be one tunnel. Or is the nest a little more sophisticated ? The box is developed by bumblebees specialists, and they made a few little holes in the back for ventilation. I was thinking about doing a little experiment. I buy a 2th box, and i dig him in as much as possible. I put sand on top of it, and only keep the entree open. That should protect it a little better against the cold. But should i do something with the ventilation holes ? Maybe straws to the surface.

vox_mundi

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #256 on: August 03, 2020, 11:10:40 PM »
Bumblebees are tough, but not invincible.

A bumblebee queen does not overwinter in the nest. They overwinter in burrows beneath leaf litter or in brush piles. They will be several cm deep, near or below the frost line in dry soil. They may use abandoned mice/vole nests. Their metabolism is so slow during winter that ventalation is usually not a problem.

In spring, a mated queen emerges from her overwintering site, searches for a spot to nest, and works alone to raise a first cohort of worker daughters. The colony grows over several months, producing successive cohorts of workers before switching to produce males and new queens. In mid‐ to late summer, newly mated queens seek sheltered sites where they overwinter.

Rinse; repeat.

Habitat determines both location.

Nectar and pollen near the colony nest
Dry, unfrozen, leaf litter for overwinter site.

Bumblebees start their year early. I've seen them at flowers early march, anytime it's above 8-10°C.

Honeybees will be out earlier because they can return to the colony and warm up. I've seen honeybees on my Snowdrops on clear sunny days in January
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vox_mundi

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #257 on: September 28, 2020, 09:27:24 PM »
Insect Armageddon: Low Doses of the Insecticide, Imidacloprid, Cause Blindness In Insects
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-insect-armageddon-doses-insecticide-imidacloprid.html

New research has identified a mechanism by which low levels of insecticides such as, the neonicotinoid Imidacloprid, could harm the nervous, metabolic and immune system of insects, including those that are not pests, such as our leading pollinators, bees.

A study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, led by researchers at the University of Melbourne and Baylor College of Medicine, shows that low doses of Imidacloprid trigger neurodegeneration and disrupt vital body-wide functions, including energy production, vision, movement and the immune system, in the vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster.

With insect populations declining around the world and intense use of insecticides suspected to play a role, the findings provide important evidence that even small doses of insecticides reduce the capacity of insects to survive, even those that are not pests.

"Our research was conducted on one insecticide, but there is evidence that other insecticides cause oxidative stress, so they may have similar [or synergistic] impacts"

The researchers arrived at the findings by studying the effects of Imidacloprid in vinegar fly larvae. In the field, the insecticide is generally used at concentrations of up to 2,800 parts per million (ppm). In the lab, researchers tested lower doses, identifying that the very small dose 2.5 ppm was enough to reduce the movement of fly larvae by 50 percent after just two hours of exposure.



"That's an indication of the impact of the insecticide on the function of the brain," ... "From there, the accumulation of massive amounts of reactive oxygen species (ROS) or free radicals inside the brain triggers a cascade of damaging events that spread to many other tissues."

Researchers also tested the insecticide on adult flies, finding that flies exposed to very low doses (4 ppm) over 25 days became blind and developed movement problems that affected their ability to climb, symptomatic of neurodegeneration in other parts of the brain.



Felipe Martelli el al., "Low doses of the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid induce ROS triggering neurological and metabolic impairments in Drosophila," PNAS (2020)
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/09/25/2011828117
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Alexander555

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #258 on: September 30, 2020, 08:19:01 AM »
At least the mosquitos seem to do well. A new virus is spreading, transmitted by mosquito's. And it seems to be a pretty big area. So it's not looking very well for the rest of the insects. If the risk from a mosquito bite just gets bigger. More chemical stuff will be sprayed on every tourist. And that sounds like a virus paradise. The collaps of biodiversity will only continue. https://sputniknews.com/india/202009291080605436-new-threat-in-sight-indian-medics-warn-of-another-virus-outbreak-in-china/

Alexander555

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #259 on: September 30, 2020, 08:41:57 AM »
A few weeks ago they discovered salmonella in the place where i work. Would things like this also be related to the loss of insects, biodiversity ? Now we have the salmonella hotzone, and the covid-19 restrictions at the same time. And we had many salmonella  infections the last months, in other places.

kassy

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #260 on: September 30, 2020, 09:55:52 AM »
I don´t think so. Bacteria and insects are quite different.
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vox_mundi

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #261 on: September 30, 2020, 12:20:51 PM »
Two Pesticides Approved for Use in US Harmful to Bees
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-pesticides-bees.html

A previously banned insecticide, which was approved for agricultural use last year in the United States, is harmful for bees and other beneficial insects that are crucial for agriculture, and a second pesticide in widespread use also harms these insects. That is according to a new analysis from researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.

As the agricultural industry turns to new types of pesticides to protect crops, the biologists behind the recent large-scale meta-analysis warn that two of these—flupyradifurone (sold under the brand name Sivanto) and the recently approved pesticide sulfoxaflor (sold under the name Transform WG)—have harmful effects similar to a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, several of which were recently banned in the European Union and Canada. Neonicotinoid pesticides have been shown to be detrimental to honeybees and other beneficial insects.

It is clear that these insecticides are harmful to bees," Muth said. She noted that regulators made decisions before scientists had completed all of the research included in the meta-analysis.

In addition to harming honeybees, the insecticides also showed signs of harming other beneficial insects, such as wild bumblebees and lacewings, according to the research.

In addition to increasing mortality in bees, the insecticides had some less than lethal effects, such as reducing reproductive ability and making pollinators less efficient foragers.

"So much of the regulatory process is focused on looking at toxicity, meaning how much of the insecticide you need to kill an insect," Siviter said. "And what research has found over the last decade is that these insecticides can have a lot of sub-lethal effects on pollinators, influencing things like foraging ability or a bee's ability to reproduce. These effects need to be considered in the regulatory process as well, because that can affect survival."

Harry Siviter et al, Do novel insecticides pose a threat to beneficial insects?, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2020)
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.1265
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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #262 on: October 01, 2020, 02:22:33 PM »
when the pollinators are gone this is what is left ...

Hand Pollination, Not Agrochemicals, Increases Cocoa Yield and Farmer Income
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-pollination-agrochemicals-cocoa-yield-farmer.html

A research team from the University of Göttingen has investigated the relative importance of the use of pesticides, fertilizers and manual pollination in a well replicated field trial in Indonesian agroforestry systems. The result: an increase in both cocoa yield and farming income was achieved—not by agrochemicals, but by manual pollination. The study was published in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment.

Cocoa requires cross-pollination by insects to produce fruit. It is unclear how to encourage natural pollination by tiny midges, flies or wasps. In fact, the true identity of the main pollinators has yet to be discovered. Under natural conditions, more than 90% of flowers are not visited by insects and do not develop fruit. These results clearly show that traditional agricultural intensification with agrochemicals is not always the best way forward.

Working together with colleagues and students of the Indonesian University of Tadulako of Palu, the scientists found that hand pollination increased the yield of cocoa trees by 161%. After deducting the costs of manual pollination, this meant a 69% increase in income for small-holder farmers. Using more pesticide and fertilizer did not increase yields.

Manuel Toledo-Hernández et al, Hand pollination, not pesticides or fertilizers, increases cocoa yields and farmer income, Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment (2020)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167880920303467
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kassy

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #263 on: October 01, 2020, 05:18:19 PM »
Damn that is sad.  :(
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Alexander555

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #264 on: October 02, 2020, 06:59:19 PM »
when the pollinators are gone this is what is left ...

Hand Pollination, Not Agrochemicals, Increases Cocoa Yield and Farmer Income
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-pollination-agrochemicals-cocoa-yield-farmer.html

A research team from the University of Göttingen has investigated the relative importance of the use of pesticides, fertilizers and manual pollination in a well replicated field trial in Indonesian agroforestry systems. The result: an increase in both cocoa yield and farming income was achieved—not by agrochemicals, but by manual pollination. The study was published in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment.

Cocoa requires cross-pollination by insects to produce fruit. It is unclear how to encourage natural pollination by tiny midges, flies or wasps. In fact, the true identity of the main pollinators has yet to be discovered. Under natural conditions, more than 90% of flowers are not visited by insects and do not develop fruit. These results clearly show that traditional agricultural intensification with agrochemicals is not always the best way forward.

Working together with colleagues and students of the Indonesian University of Tadulako of Palu, the scientists found that hand pollination increased the yield of cocoa trees by 161%. After deducting the costs of manual pollination, this meant a 69% increase in income for small-holder farmers. Using more pesticide and fertilizer did not increase yields.

Manuel Toledo-Hernández et al, Hand pollination, not pesticides or fertilizers, increases cocoa yields and farmer income, Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment (2020)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167880920303467

May the cacao is not in his natural place, if 90 % is not visited by insects. Or maybe they don't have the right insects anymore. When i watch the bees over here, they just jump from flower to flower. They don't scip one of them.

vox_mundi

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #265 on: October 21, 2020, 01:18:08 PM »
Current Chernobyl-Level Radiation Harmful to Bees: Study
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-current-chernobyl-level-bees.html

Bumblebees exposed to levels of radiation found within the Chernobyl exclusion zone suffered a "significant" drop in reproduction, in new research published Wednesday that scientists say should prompt a rethink of international calculations of nuclear environmental risk.

Researchers in Scotland and Germany exposed bee colonies in a laboratory setting to a range of radiation levels found in areas of the exclusion zone around the ruined Chernobyl site, where a reactor exploded in 1986 in the world's worst nuclear disaster.

They found that colony reproduction reduced by 30 to 45 percent at doses previously considered too low to impact insects.

Katherine E. Raines et al. Chernobyl-level radiation exposure damages bumblebee reproduction: a laboratory experiment, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2020)
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.1638

... cockroaches, on the other hand, are doing fine.
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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #266 on: November 11, 2020, 03:56:44 AM »
First Murder Hornet Nest Had 200 Queens Capable of Spawning New Nests
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/10/murder-hornet-nest-queens-washington

When scientists in Washington state destroyed the first nest of so-called murder hornets found in the US, they discovered about 500 live specimens in various stages of development, officials said Tuesday.

Inside, researchers found:

  • 190 total larvae that developed from eggs.
  • 108 pupae, the next stage after larvae. They were nearly all queens.
  • 112 workers, which included 85 workers previously vacuumed out of the nest.
  • 76 queens, nearly all of them virgin queens. New queens emerge from the nest, mate and then leave to find a place to spend winter and later start a new colony.

Most of the specimens were still alive when the nest was opened, among them nearly 200 queens that had the potential to start their own nests, said Sven-Erik Spichiger, an entomologist leading the fight to kill the hornets.

Still, scientists think other nests already exist and say it’s impossible to know if any queens escaped before the first nest was destroyed. Each nest can destroy several honeybee colonies.
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Alexander555

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #267 on: November 11, 2020, 09:40:05 PM »
I'm doing some gardening now. And what i learned so far is probably a good explanation why insects are declining so fast. I was looking for what i need to let something grow, the nutrients. And the  conclusion is that you can do it the biological way, compost with fungi and bacteria to release the nutrients from your compost. Or mechanical work with fertiliser, and that kills your soil. So we kill all live in 600 000 square kilometers of soil every year, extra. On top of what was above that soil. And that will probably continue for dozens of years , with 80 million people extra every year. How are they going to solve that ? Everything is large scale production.

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #268 on: November 12, 2020, 04:52:45 PM »
I'm doing some gardening now. And what i learned so far is probably a good explanation why insects are declining so fast. I was looking for what i need to let something grow, the nutrients. And the  conclusion is that you can do it the biological way, compost with fungi and bacteria to release the nutrients from your compost. Or mechanical work with fertiliser, and that kills your soil. So we kill all live in 600 000 square kilometers of soil every year, extra. On top of what was above that soil. And that will probably continue for dozens of years , with 80 million people extra every year. How are they going to solve that ? Everything is large scale production.

The solution does not exist.


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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #269 on: December 09, 2020, 03:09:53 PM »
How Non-Native Plants Are Contributing to a Global Insect Decline
https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-non-native-plants-are-contributing-to-a-global-insect-decline
Quote
The impact of introduced plants on native biodiversity has emerged as a hot-button issue in ecology. But recent research provides new evidence that the displacement of native plant communities is a key cause of a collapse in insect populations and is affecting birds as well.

One year on: Insects still in peril as world struggles with global pandemic
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/one-year-on-insects-still-in-peril-as-world-struggles-with-global-pandemic/
Quote
In June 2019, in response to media outcry and alarm over a supposed ongoing global “Insect Apocalypse,” Mongabay published a thorough four-part survey on the state of the world’s insect species and their populations.
In four, in-depth stories, science writer Jeremy Hance interviewed 24 leading entomologists and other scientists on six continents and working in 12 nations to get their expert views on the rate of insect decline in Europe, the U.S., and especially the tropics, including Latin America, Africa, and Australia.
Now, 16 months later, Hance reaches out to seven of those scientists to see what’s new. He finds much bad news: butterflies in Ohio declining by 2% per year, 94% of wild bee interactions with native plants lost in New England, and grasshopper abundance falling by 30% in a protected Kansas grassland over 20 years.
Scientists say such losses aren’t surprising; what’s alarming is our inaction. One researcher concludes: “Real insect conservation would mean conserving large whole ecosystems both from the point source attacks, AND the overall blanket of climate change and six billion more people on the planet than there should be.”

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #270 on: December 09, 2020, 05:21:48 PM »
normally by this time of year I have encountered  hundreds of queen wasps looking for or in places to hibernate . This year , not one ! Every month this spring and summer had at least one major storm . These have devastated breeding in local birds from rooks to gold finches . I guess one of them did for the wasps too . b.c.
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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #271 on: January 12, 2021, 10:24:36 AM »
Insect Populations Suffering Death by 1,000 Cuts, Say Scientists
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/11/insect-populations-suffering-death-1000-cuts-scientists

... The 12 new studies are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Nature is under siege [and] most biologists agree that the world has entered its sixth mass extinction event,” concludes the lead analysis in the package. “Insects are suffering from ‘death by a thousand cuts’ [and] severe insect declines can potentially have global ecological and economic consequences.”

Prof David Wagner of the University of Connecticut in the US, the lead author of the analysis, said the abundance of many insect populations was falling by 1-2% a year, a rate that should not be seen as small: “You’re losing 10-20% of your animals over a single decade and that is just absolutely frightening. You’re tearing apart the tapestry of life.”

Wagner said most of the causes of insect declines were well known. “But there’s one really big unknown and that’s climate change – that’s the one that really scares me the most.” He said increased climate variability could be “driving [insect] extinctions at a rate that we haven’t seen before”.

“Insects are really susceptible to drought because they’re all surface area and no volume,” Wagner said. “Things like dragonflies and damselflies can desiccate to death in an hour with really low humidity.”

One of the studies identifies an increasingly erratic climate as the overarching reason for region-wide losses of moths and other insects in the forests of north-western Costa Rica since 1978. This could be a “harbinger of the broader fate of Earth’s tropical forests”, said Wagner.

Insect Decline In the Anthropocene: Death By a Thousand Cuts
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/2/e2023989118
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vox_mundi

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #272 on: January 19, 2021, 11:57:29 PM »
Monarch Butterfly Population Moves Closer to Extinction
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-monarch-butterfly-population-closer-extinction.html



The number of western monarch butterflies wintering along the California coast has plummeted precipitously to a record low, putting the orange-and-black insects closer to extinction, researchers announced Tuesday.

An annual winter count by the Xerces Society recorded fewer than 2,000 butterflies, a massive decline from the tens of thousands tallied in recent years and the millions that clustered in trees from Northern California's Marin County to San Diego County in the south in the 1980s.

Western monarch butterflies head south from the Pacific Northwest to California each winter, returning to the same places and even the same trees, where they cluster to keep warm. The monarchs generally arrive in California at the beginning of November and spread across the country once warmer weather arrives in March.

On the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, another monarch population travels from southern Canada and the northeastern United States across thousands of miles to spend the winter in central Mexico. Scientists estimate the monarch population in the eastern U.S. has fallen about 80% since the mid-1990s, but the drop-off in the western U.S. has been even steeper.

The Xerces Society, a nonprofit environmental organization that focuses on the conservation of invertebrates, recorded about 29,000 butterflies in its annual survey last winter. That was not much different than the tally the winter before, when an all-time low of 27,000 monarchs were counted—less than 1% of historic populations.

But the count this year is dismal. At iconic monarch wintering sites in the city of Pacific Grove, volunteers didn't see a single butterfly this winter. Other well-known locations, such as Pismo State Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove and Natural Bridges State Park, only hosted a few hundred butterflies, researchers said.

Massive wildfires throughout the U.S. West last year may have influenced their breeding and migration, researchers said.

A 2017 study by Washington State University researchers predicted that if the monarch population dropped below 30,000, the species would likely go extinct in the next few decades if nothing is done to save them.

https://xerces.org/monarchs/western-monarch-conservation


... all gone ... :(
« Last Edit: January 20, 2021, 12:18:45 AM by vox_mundi »
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vox_mundi

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #273 on: January 22, 2021, 09:52:44 PM »
A Quarter of Known Bee Species Haven't Appeared in Public Records Since the 1990s
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-quarter-bee-species-havent-1990s.html

Researchers at the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) in Argentina have found that, since the 1990s, up to 25% of reported bee species are no longer being reported in global records, despite a large increase in the number of records available. While this does not mean that these species are all extinct, it might indicate that these species have become rare enough that no one is observing them in nature. The findings appear January 22 in the journal One Earth.

"With citizen science and the ability to share data, records are going up exponentially, but the number of species reported in these records is going down," says first author Eduardo Zattara, a biologist at the Pollination Ecology Group from the Institute for Research on Biodiversity and the Environment (CONICET-Universidad Nacional del Comahue). "It's not a bee cataclysm yet, but what we can say is that wild bees are not exactly thriving."

In addition to finding that a quarter of total bee species are no longer being recorded, the researchers observed that this decline is not evenly distributed among bee families. Records of halictid bees—the second most common family—have declined by 17% since the 1990s. Those for Melittidae—a much rarer family—have gone down by as much as 41%.

"It's important to remember that 'bee' doesn't just mean honeybees, even though honeybees are the most cultivated species," says Zattara. "Our society's footprint impacts wild bees as well, which provide ecosystem services we depend on."

"It's not really about how certain the numbers are here. It's more about the trend," says Zattara. "It's about confirming what's been shown to happen locally is going on globally. And also, about the fact that much better certainty will be achieved as more data are shared with public databases."

Zattara and Aizen: "Worldwide occurrence records suggest a global decline in bee species richness.", One Earth, (2021)
https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(20)30651-5
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vox_mundi

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #274 on: February 26, 2021, 11:02:38 AM »
Monarch Butterflies Down 26% In Mexico Wintering Grounds
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-monarch-butterflies-mexico-wintering-grounds.html

The number of monarch butterflies that showed up at their winter resting grounds in central Mexico decreased by about 26% this year, and four times as many trees were lost to illegal logging, drought and other causes, making 2020 a bad year for the butterflies.

The government commission for natural protected areas said the butterflies' population covered only 2.1 hectares (5.2 acres) in 2020, compared to 2.8 hectares (6.9 acres) the previous year and about one-third of the 6.05 hectares (14.95 acres) detected in 2018.

Gloria Tavera, the regional director of Mexico's Commission for National Protected Areas, blamed the drop on "extreme climate conditions," the loss of milkweed habitat in the United States and Canada on which butterflies depend, and deforestation in the butterflies' wintering grounds in Mexico.

Illegal logging in the monarchs wintering rounds rose to almost 13.4 hectares (33 acres), a huge increase from the 0.43 hectare (1 acre) lost to logging last year.

In addition, wind storms, drought and the felling of trees that had fallen victim to pine beetles or disease, caused the loss of another 6.9 hectares (17 acres) in the reserve, bringing the total forest loss in 2020 to 20.65 hectares (51 acres). That compares to an overall loss of about 5 hectares (12.3 acres) from all causes the previous year.

Tavera said the drought was affecting the butterflies themselves, as well as the pine and fir trees where the clump together for warmth.

"The severe drought we are experiencing is having effects," Tavera said. "All the forests in the reserve are under water stress, the forests are dry."

"The butterflies are looking for water on the lower slopes, near the houses," she noted.

Tavera also expressed concern about the sever winter storms in Texas, which the butterflies will have to cross—and feed and lay their eggs—on their way back to their northern summer homes in coming months.

"This is a cause for worry," Tavera said, referring to whether the monarchs will find enough food and habitat after the winter freeze.

... The U.S. group Center for Food Safety called for the monarchs to be granted endangered species protection, noting "the minimum population threshold needed to be out of the danger zone of extinction is six hectares."

Millions of monarchs migrate from the U.S. and Canada each year to forests west of Mexico's capital. The butterflies hit a low of just 0.67 hectares (1.66 acres) in 2013-2014.

Loss of habitat, especially the milkweed where the monarchs lay their eggs, pesticide and herbicide use, as well climate change, all pose threats to the species' migration.

While there was plenty of bad news for the butterflies—very few showed up to some historic wintering sites like Sierra Chincua—there was the welcome news that a new wintering site was discovered nearby, in a mountaintop near the Lagunas de Zempoala protected area, near Mexico City.
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kassy

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #275 on: February 26, 2021, 01:51:15 PM »
This happened in Mexico:

In Mexico, 53 local police officers are being questioned over the disappearance of environmental activist Homero Gómez.

Mr Gómez, who manages a butterfly sanctuary in the central town of Ocampo, was last seen on 13 January.

...

Mr Gómez is a tireless campaigner for the conservation of the monarch butterfly and the pine and fir forests where it hibernates.

...

The sanctuary Mr Gómez manages near Ocampo opened in November as part of a strategy to stop illegal logging in the area, which is a key habitat for the monarch butterfly.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-51205114

RIP Mr Gómez.

Ofc the next target is the trees...

Illegal logging in the monarchs wintering rounds rose to almost 13.4 hectares (33 acres), a huge increase from the 0.43 hectare (1 acre) lost to logging last year.

 >:(
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vox_mundi

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #276 on: February 26, 2021, 08:38:46 PM »
Pesticide Imidacloprid Threatens Future for Key Pollinator
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-pesticide-imidacloprid-threatens-future-key.html

An insecticide used to control pest infestations on squash and pumpkins significantly hinders the reproduction of ground-nesting bees—valuable pollinators for many food crops, a new University of Guelph study has revealed.

This first-ever study of pesticide impacts on a ground-nesting bee in a real-world context found female hoary squash bees exposed to imidacloprid dug 85 percent fewer nests, collected less pollen from crop flowers and produced 89 percent fewer offspring than unexposed bees.

Chan tested three insecticide treatments: the neonic imidacloprid applied to soil at planting time; the neonic thiamethoxam applied as a seed treatment; and an anthranilic diamide (an emerging non-neonic insecticide) sprayed onto growing plants. A fourth group without insecticides served as a control.


Number of hoary squash bee offspring from nests established by mated female bees in 2017 and 2018.  (Either Admire-imidacloprid, applied to soil at seeding; or Coragen-chlorantraniliprole applied as a foliar spray; or FarMore FI400-thiamethoxam applied as a seed treatment)

... Many species of ground-nesting bees, including the hoary squash bee, are responsible for pollination of numerous fruits, vegetables and oilseed crops in North America, said Chan.

"Solitary ground-nesting bees make up about 70 percent of bee species. It's a really important ecological group and is also really important in crop pollination," she said.

Published recently in Scientific Reports , the study involved three years of monitoring the foraging and nesting behavior of squash bees.

D. Susan Willis Chan et al, Population decline in a ground-nesting solitary squash bee (Eucera pruinosa) following exposure to a neonicotinoid insecticide treated crop (Cucurbita pepo), Scientific Reports (2021)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-83341-7
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vox_mundi

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #277 on: February 27, 2021, 06:28:09 AM »
Colombia's Apiarists Say Avocado Buzz Is Killing Bees
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-colombia-apiarists-avocado-bees.html

Hundreds of hives have been killed off in Colombia in recent years, and some investigations have pointed to fipronil, an insecticide banned for use on crops in Europe and restricted in the United States and China.

It is used to control all manner of insects, including ants and ticks, and has been blamed for several bee massacres around the world.

In Quindio, hive collapse has coincided with the expansion of monoculture in recent decades, according to Faber Sabogal, president of the Asoproabejas beekeepers' organization.

According to the local government, five multinational companies bought large tracts of land in the region between 2016 and 2019 to profit from the growing global appetite for Hass avocados.

Exports skyrocketed from 1.7 tons in 2014 to 44.5 tons in 2019, and this year, Colombia became the largest supplier of the creamy, green delicacy to Europe.

But bees are the collateral damage, becoming contaminated as they buzz through pesticide-treated plantations looking for food, say beekeepers.

"They bring this poison to the hive and kill everyone else," said Salazar.

... Asoproabejas members have videotaped dozens of mass bee die-offs in several regions of Colombia, mainly in the west.

Last year, the state-owned Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA) was notified by beekeepers of 256 suspected hive poisonings in Quindio alone.

Some 10 million insects were lost.

ICA regional manager Jorge Garcia said the body examined samples from six apiaries and found that "the fipronil molecule is one of the causes of mortality."

Withdrawing the poison altogether has been difficult "because the companies producing agrochemicals will be affected economically," said Salazar.

Maria Latorre, spokeswoman for Colombia's agrochemical union, said a fipronil ban would provoke "a very negative situation for the productive structure" of the 33 crops that rely on it.

The ICA has denied any link between the expansion of avocado crops in Quindio and the recent decimation of bees.

... "The bee is a bioindicator. If bees are dying, what other insects beneficial to the environment... are dying?".
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vox_mundi

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #278 on: March 05, 2021, 12:03:28 AM »
Butterfly Numbers Plummeting In US West As Climate Crisis Takes Toll
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/04/butterfly-numbers-plummeting-us-west-climate-crisis

The varied, and beautiful, butterfly species that dot the US west are being cut down by the climate crisis, new research has found, with rising temperatures helping cause a steep decline in butterfly numbers over the past 40 years.

There has been a 1.6% reduction in the total number of butterflies observed west of the Rocky Mountain range each year since 1977, researchers calculated, which amounts to a staggering loss of butterflies over the timespan of the study period.

“You extrapolate it and it feels crazy but it’s consistent with the anecdotal ‘windshield effect’ where people aren’t spending time cleaning insects from their car windshields any more,” said Matt Forister, biology professor at the University of Nevada and lead study author.

“Certainly many butterfly species are becoming so rare it’s hard for some people to see what were once widespread, common species.”

The declines are winnowing away much-loved species such as the monarch butterfly, which is known for is spectacular mass migrations to California each year but has lost 99% of its population compared with 40 years ago. “With the monarch it seems we are on the verge of losing the migration, if not the species itself,” Forister said.

The research, published in Science, analyzed citizen-gathered sightings of butterflies in 72 locations spanning all of the western US states. In all, more than 450 butterfly species were included in the study.

Across all of these sightings, the researchers found an annual 1.6% drop in butterfly numbers in the west, which is consistent with the rate of decline of other insects found by researchers in different places around the world, fueling concerns of a deep crisis among the creatures that help supply much of our food, break down waste and form crucial foundations to the web of life.



Fewer butterflies seen by community scientists across the warming and drying landscapes of the American West, Science, (2021)
https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.abe5585
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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #279 on: May 17, 2021, 10:23:11 PM »


"Following the Trump administration’s decision to delay any chlorpyrifos  ban until at least 2022, Pesticide Action Network and Natural Resources Defense Council filed suit against the EPA in April 2017, seeking to force the government to follow through with the Obama administration’s recommendations to ban chlorpyrifos. In August 2018, a federal appeals court found that the EPA broke the law by continuing to allow use of chlorpyrifos, and ordered EPA to finalize its proposed ban within two months. After more delays, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced in July 2019 that EPA would not ban the chemical.

Several states have sued the EPA over its failure to ban chlorpyrifos, including California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, Vermont and Oregon. The states argue in court documents that chlorpyrifos should be banned in food production due to the dangers associated with it.

Earthjustice has also filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Court seeking a nationwide ban on behalf of groups advocating for environmentalists, farmworkers and people with learning disabilities.

On April 29, 2021, the U.S. Judge Jed S. Rakoff  of the Ninth Circuit issued a decision, finding the EPA had engaged in an “egregious delay” that exposed a generation of American children to unsafe levels of chlorpyrifos.”  He ordered the EPA to issue a final regulation within 60 days that modifies or revokes the registration for chlorpyrifos."

https://usrtk.org/pesticides/chlorpyrifos/

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #280 on: June 21, 2021, 08:43:21 AM »
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/20/bee-friendly-urban-wildflower-meadows-prove-a-hit-with-german-city-dwellers
by Philip Oltermann

Bee-friendly urban wildflower meadows prove a hit with German city dwellers

Excerpts:

Bordered by a one-way traffic system lies a bucolic 1,720 sq metre haven as colourful as a Monet landscape: blue cornflowers, red poppies, white cow parsley and purple field scabious dot a sea of nettles and wild grass as armies of insects buzz through the air. Two endangered carpenter bees, larger than their honey bee cousins and with pitch-black abdomens, gorge themselves on a bush of yellow gorse.

The mini-wilderness on Baerwaldstrasse is one of more than 100 wildflower meadows that have been planted in Germany’s largest cities over the past three years and are coming into full bloom this summer to transform urban landscapes.

Berlin has set aside €1.5m to seed and nurture more than 50 wild gardens over a five-year period, while Munich has set up about 30 meadows since 2018. There are similar initiatives in Stuttgart, Leipzig and Braunschweig. Hamburg, which started the trend in 2015, this month unveiled the first of a series of bee-friendly flower beds atop bus shelters.


Juliana Schlaberg of Germany’s Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) said her NGO was receiving more and more requests from city residents who either wanted to grow their own wildflower patches or pressure their council to stop cutting green spaces into manicured lawns.

“I was quite sceptical at first”, said O’Doyle, an Irishman who has lived in the German capital for over a decade. “It looked disorganised. And I resented the loss of a large patch of grass where I could play catch with my dog.

“I’ve changed my mind,” said O’Doyle. “It’s become an incredibly attractive addition to our neighbourhood. You experience the seasons in a whole new way.”

The findings inspired a 2019 “save the bees” petition in Bavaria that became the most successful in the southern state’s history

Christian Schmid-Egger, who coordinates Berlin’s wildflower meadows on behalf of the German Wildlife Foundation, said any conservation effort would ultimate require broader changes in agricultural practices: “If we are going to save the bees, we won’t be doing it in cities.”


Nonetheless, he hoped that the urban havens would teach city-dwellers something essential about their natural environment.
“Animals need precisely the type of wild natural habitat that humans perceive as a mess that needs to be put in order”, said Schmid-Egger.

At best, said Schmid-Egger, Germany’s new wildflower meadows could teach urban dwellers the value of unkempt spaces and encourage them to create natural habitats in their own gardens, courtyards or balconies. “Eventually, many such hotspots could create a network of wilderness right inside our cities.”

----

We urgently need to do away with the concept of 'tidiness'. This is the difficult part. I'm having trouble to wean myself of that hard addiction. Everytime I wipe something off my clothes I get a bit angry with myself and this madness. Many times it was an insect and I crushed it when wiping it off.
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
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Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

kassy

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #281 on: June 21, 2021, 02:42:26 PM »
At least we have to get rid of tidiness in landscaping. Forests also need dead standing wood and some dead wood lying around.

Signs of 'Insect Apocalypse' Could Be Linked to Particular Human-Made Structures

...

Dams and declines
Understanding insect decline requires long-term datasets, which are rare, especially from the global south. In our new study, we present one of the most comprehensive known datasets of subtropical freshwater insects, spanning 20 years. What we found were pervasive declines in insect numbers across all examined aquatic insect groups, including midges, mayflies and dragonflies.

Declines occurred in channels, lakes, rivers and backwaters across one of South America's largest freshwater systems, the Paraná River floodplain. In parallel, we found that numbers of invasive fish increased and water chemistry became more imbalanced – environmental changes all linked to the construction of dams.

There are over 130 dams along the Paraná and its tributaries. The most significant is Itaipu, the second largest hydroelectric plant in the world. Situated in Brazil and Paraguay, its reservoir is so large that it submerged one of Earth's largest waterfalls, Guaíra Falls, as it filled. The removal of such a natural geographic barrier between the Lower and Upper Paraná River has led to mass invasions of fish: many of them predators of insects.

At the same time, dams block the flow of sediment and nutrients, disrupting the water chemistry and making the water more transparent. Most aquatic insects are dark or mottled for camouflage in murky water. The increased water transparency weakened their ability to hide, making them even more vulnerable to being eaten by the invading fish.

Around 70 percent of Brazil's electricity comes from hydropower, and hydroelectric dams will be essential in the transition away from fossil fuels. Nevertheless, damming can have severe environmental and social impacts.

Our study shows that the negative consequences of dams can occur long after the forests have been flooded and local communities dislocated.

and more:
https://www.sciencealert.com/are-dams-responsible-for-the-population-collapse-of-insects

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vox_mundi

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #282 on: August 25, 2021, 10:22:07 PM »
LED Streetlights Contribute to Insect Population Declines: Study
https://phys.org/news/2021-08-streetlights-contribute-insect-population-declines.html

Streetlights—particularly those that use white light-emitting diodes (LEDs)—not only disrupt insect behavior but are also a culprit behind their declining numbers, a new study carried out in southern England showed Wednesday.

Scientists compared 26 roadside sites consisting of either hedgerows or grass verges that were lit by streetlights, against an equal number of nearly identical sites that were unlit.

They also examined a site with one unlit and two lit sections, all of which were similar in their vegetation.

The team chose moth caterpillars as a proxy for nocturnal insects more broadly, because they remain within a few meters of where they hatched during the larval stage of their lives, before they acquire the ability to fly.

The team either struck the hedges with sticks so that the caterpillars fell out, or swept the grass with nets to pick them up.

The results were eye-opening, with a 47 percent reduction in insect population at the hedgerow sites and 37 percent reduction at the roadside grassy areas.

The lighting also disturbed their feeding behavior: when the team weighed the caterpillars, they found that those in the lighted areas were heavier.

Boyes said the team interpreted that as the caterpillars not knowing how to respond to the unfamiliar situation that runs counter to the conditions they evolved in over millions of years, and feeding more as a result to rush through their development.

The team found that the disruption was most pronounced in areas lit by LED lights as opposed to high-pressure sodium (HPS) lamps or older low-pressure sodium (LPS) lamps, both of which produce a yellow-orange glow that is less like sunlight.

LED lamps have grown more popular in recent years because of their superior energy efficiency.

Street lighting has detrimental impacts on local insect populations, Science Advances,  25 Aug 2021: Vol. 7, no. 35, eabi8322,
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/35/eabi8322
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vox_mundi

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #283 on: October 11, 2021, 02:51:55 PM »
The American Bumblebee Has Vanished From Eight States
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/american-bumblebee-has-vanished-from-eight-us-states-180978817/



In two decades, the American bumblebee (Bombus pensylvanicus) population has declined by nearly 90 percent due to a combination of threats, including habitat loss, pesticides and diseases.

According to a proposed rule released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the species' population has dropped nearly 90 percent and could qualify for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Independent's Graeme Massie reports. Despite dwindling population numbers, the American bumblebee is not protected in any state or by federal law.

American bumblebees are a vital pollinator for wildflowers and crops, and their decline could have severe consequences for the environment. The species has completely vanished from eight states, including Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Oregon, Ben Turner reports for Live Science. The bumblebee species have declined by 99 percent in New York. In the Midwest and Southeast, population numbers have dropped by more than 50 percent.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's announcement came about after an August 2021 petition for protecting the American bumblebee under the ESA was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Bombus Pollinator Association of Law Students, an Albany Law School student group.

Researchers can trace the bee's plummeting population numbers back to multiple threats, including pesticides, habitat loss, climate change, diseases and competition from non-native honeybees. States with the most significant dip in bee numbers have the largest increase in the use of pesticides like neonicotinoids, insecticides, and fungicides, per Live Science.

Pesticides like neonicotinoids harm the bumblebee's natural homing system, disrupt their communication strategies, and weaken their immune systems, reports Live Science. According to the Independent, the largest remaining American bumblebee populations are located in the southern Great Plains and southeastern states.
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kassy

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #284 on: October 11, 2021, 04:59:57 PM »
Quote
States with the most significant dip in bee numbers have the largest increase in the use of pesticides like neonicotinoids, insecticides, and fungicides, per Live Science.
I hope research is being done into all pollinators in these states. The decline is probably not limited to the bumblebees alone.
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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #285 on: October 13, 2021, 08:42:33 PM »
First Global Estimate of the Importance of Pollinators for Seed Production In Plants
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-global-importance-pollinators-seed-production.html

About 175,000 plant species—half of all flowering plants—mostly or completely rely on animal pollinators to make seeds and so to reproduce. Declines in pollinators could therefore cause major disruptions in natural ecosystems, including loss of biodiversity.

This is the finding from a paper, "Widespread vulnerability of plant seed production to pollinator declines," published in the journal Science Advances on 13 October 2021.



... The findings show that, without pollinators, a third of flowering plant species would produce no seeds and half would suffer an 80% or more reduction in fertility. Therefore, even though auto-fertility is common, it by no means fully compensates for reductions in pollination service in most plant species.

"Recent studies show that many pollinator species have gone down in numbers, with some even having gone extinct. Our finding that large numbers of wild plant species rely on pollinators shows that declines in pollinators could cause major disruptions in natural ecosystems," Dr. Rodger says.

Prof Mark van Kleunen, from the University of Konstanz and a co-author, says it is not a case of all pollinators disappearing: "If there are fewer pollinators to go around, or even just a change in which pollinator species are most numerous, we can expect knock-on effects on plants, with affected plant species potentially declining, further harming animal species and human populations depending on those plants. Pollinators aren't only important for crop production, but also for biodiversity.

It also means that plants that do not rely on pollinators, like many problematic weeds, might spread even more when pollinators continue to decline," he adds.

Dr. Joanne Bennet, a co-author from the University of Canberra who curated the GloOL database, says another disconcerting factor is the positive feedback loop that develops if pollinator-depending plants decline or go extinct: "If auto-fertile plants come to dominate the landscape, then even more pollinators will be negatively affected, because auto-fertile plants tend to produce less nectar and pollen."

James G. Rodger, Widespread vulnerability of plant seed production to pollinator declines, Science Advances (2021)
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abd3524
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vox_mundi

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #286 on: October 26, 2021, 05:01:52 PM »
Common Insecticide Linked to Extreme Decline In Freshwater Insects
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-common-insecticide-linked-extreme-decline.html

The widely used pesticide thiacloprid can cause a large-scale decline in freshwater insects. This was discovered by researchers from the Living Lab in Leiden. For three months they counted the flying insects in the 36 ditches of the lab. Their research appeared in PNAS.

In the ditches of the Living Lab, Henrik Barmentlo and his colleagues exposed freshwater insects to different concentrations of thiacloprid. This substance belongs to the neonicotinoids, the world's most widely used group of insecticides. "We used realistic concentrations," says Barmentlo. They correspond to concentrations we actually measure in the surface water.

In a unique experiment, the researchers caught no less than 55,574 insects that flew out of the lab's 36 thiacloprid-contaminated ditches over a period of three months. Afterwards, they identified all specimens. They compared the results with nine control ditches, without added thiacloprid. Barmentlo: "We saw dramatic declines in all the species groups studied, such as dragonflies, beetles and sedges. Both in absolute numbers and in total biomass. In the most extreme scenario, the diversity of the most species-rich group, the dance flies, even dropped to a single species."

And that while all these insects have an important role in their ecosystem. For example, they serve as food for many insect-eating bird species. Previously, other researchers had already discovered that these bird species occur in lower numbers when there are more neonicotinoids in the water. Barmentlo: "So it is quite possible that these bird species suffer from a lack of insects, or in other words: food." ...

S. Henrik Barmentlo et al, Experimental evidence for neonicotinoid driven decline in aquatic emerging insects, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021).
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/44/e2105692118
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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #287 on: October 27, 2021, 01:16:01 PM »
Anybody interested in this topic should read Dave Goulson's Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse which I discussed in the books thread.
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vox_mundi

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #288 on: October 27, 2021, 02:14:42 PM »
Plant Compound May Protect Bees From Deadly Virus That Makes Them Lose Their Way Home
https://phys.org/news/2021-09-compound-bees-deadly-virus-home.html

Around the world, honeybees are dying in large numbers. This die-off is in part because of a deadly virus that can kill bees or impair their ability to return to the hives after foraging. But in a study published September 28 in the journal iScience, researchers show that a cheap and naturally occurring chemical compound could prevent or reverse the effects of the virus in bees. Bees that were fed the compound before becoming infected were nine times more likely to survive the virus after five days; by monitoring hives in real time, the researchers also showed that bees that were fed the compound were more likely to return to the hive at the end of a foraging day.



The deformed wing virus, transmitted by a parasite called a varroa mite, can infect bees throughout their lifecycle. Severely infected bees will die within days or have poorly developed wings that impair their ability to fly and forage. Previous research also shows that the virus can impair a bee's learning and memory, which could affect their ability to find home after hunting for food. Lost bees are likely to die, and their colony may eventually collapse because of a lack of food.

Their study revealed that the virus suppressed the expression of genes associated with nerve signal transmission and several other biological processes related to learning and memory functions in bees. The team identified sodium butyrate (NaB), a chemical compound found in many plants and known to increase the expression of a variety of genes in animals, including those involved in immune responses and learning, as a potential candidate to protect them from it.

To investigate NaB's effects on honeybees, lead author Yueh-Lung Wu at National Taiwan University and his team fed bees with NaB-laced sugar water for a week before infecting them with the deformed wing virus. More than 90% of these bees remained alive after five days, while 90% of the infected bees that didn't get NaB died over the same period.

"Our findings show that feeding the insects with NaB before virus exposure can counteract the negative impacts of the pathogen," Wu says. "We also found previously that NaB can upregulate some immune response genes in bees, and this can help suppress viral replication and improve bees' chances at survival."

... The researchers also found that, on average, only half of the infected foraging bees managed to return to the hive. But of the bees that were fed with NaB sugar water before becoming infected, more than 80% found their way home by the end of the day, a level that's comparable to uninfected bees.

"Sodium butyrate is really cheap. So, if we can prove its benefits, it would be an easy and affordable approach for beekeepers to keep their bees alive."

iScience, Tang et al.: "Real-time monitoring of deformed wing virus-infected bee foraging behavior following histone deacetylase inhibitor treatment"
https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(21)01024-5
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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #289 on: November 05, 2021, 03:24:27 PM »
Co-Formulants Used In Commercial Fungicide Affects the Health of Bumblebees
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-co-formulants-commercial-fungicide-affects-health.html

Researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London have found for the first time that a co-formulant found in commercial agricultural pesticides used across the UK significantly affects the health of bumblebees.

The new study shows that exposure to alcohol ethoxylates—a type of co-formulant used in fungicides—can cause severe gut damage, leading to a lack of appetite, weight loss and mortality in bumblebees.

Bumblebees are regularly exposed to fungicides and pesticides, and these agricultural chemicals are thought to be a driver of the decline in bees across the globe. Regulation of pesticides has always focussed on the main ingredients in the pesticide product and their impact on bee health, with co-formulants—such as alcohol ethoxylates—being overlooked as a potential threat. This represents a large gap in pesticide regulation, as this study demonstrates co-formulants can drive the entire toxicity of a product.

"Whilst 30% of bees exposed to the fungicide product died, the other 70% were far from healthy; they had damaged guts, were eating about half as much food and were losing weight. Pesticide regulation typically only looks at whether or not a bee dies, but we found that even bees who survive can be under severe stress."

Robin Mesnage et al, Improving pesticide-use data for the EU, Nature Ecology & Evolution (2021).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-021-01574-1

Edward A. Straw et al, Roundup causes high levels of mortality following contact exposure in bumble bees, Journal of Applied Ecology (2021).
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.13867
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Bruce Steele

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #290 on: November 20, 2021, 02:56:04 AM »
There is good news about rebounding numbers of Monarch Butterflies at their traditional colonies here in Calif.

https://www.westernmonarchcount.org/early-signs-of-hope-as-monarch-butterflies-return-to-california-overwintering-sites/

I have a friend in Ventura who said colonies there had noticeable increased in numbers from last year so it is nice news locally.

kassy

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #291 on: January 12, 2022, 04:22:33 PM »
How the speed of climate change is unbalancing the insect world

a long read so go read it on the link.

two short quotes:

Further south, in the UK, glowworm numbers have collapsed by three-quarters since 2001, research has found, with the climate crisis considered the primary culprit. The larvae of the insects feed on snails that thrive in damp conditions, but a string of hot and dry summers has left the glowworms critically short of prey.

These sort of losses in Europe have challenged previous assumptions that insects in temperate climates would be able to cope with a few degrees of extra heat, unlike the mass of species crowded at the world’s tropics that are already at the upper limits of their temperature tolerance. A team of researchers from Sweden and Spain have pointed out that the vast majority of insects in temperate zones are inactive during cold periods. When just the warmer, active, months of insects’ lives were considered by the scientists, they found that species in temperate areas are also starting to bump into the ceiling of livable temperature. As Frank Johansson, an academic at Sweden’s Uppsala University, glumly puts it: “Insects in temperate zones might be as threatened by climate change as those in the tropics.”

...

Not only is climate breakdown potentially causing insects to be malnourished; it also appears to be altering the scent of plants. Pollinators searching for food will note the colour and number of flowers as well as the plant’s scent, with bees able to recall a fragrance and associate it with certain plants and their nectar content. Scientists who measured the fragrance molecules emitted by rosemary in shrubland near Marseille, in France, discovered that a different scent was given off by plants that were stressed, which deterred domesticated bees. As the climate crisis stresses more plants by subjecting them to drought and soaring heat, insects may find them not only a bland meal but also unappealing to even approach.

This alteration in plants may be, for insects at least, the most far-reaching symptom of climate breakdown.

...

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jan/11/climate-change-insect-world-global-heating-species
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Shared Humanity

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #292 on: January 12, 2022, 05:36:17 PM »
I find this thread to be one of the most frightening. As insects go, so go we all.

jai mitchell

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #293 on: January 12, 2022, 06:22:24 PM »
I find this thread to be one of the most frightening. As insects go, so go we all.
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kassy

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #294 on: January 16, 2022, 07:08:07 PM »
Bees will die as ministers approve toxic banned pesticide for second time, warn experts

Government defies own scientific advisers in effort to protect sugar harvest

The government went against the advice of its own scientific advisers, who said they did not see the justification for applying the neonicotinoid to sugar beet this year.

A single teaspoon of thiamethoxam is toxic enough to kill 1.25 billion bees, according to biology professor and insect expert Dave Goulson, and wildlife chiefs warned the decision could devastate already-struggling bee populations.

Environment officials announced they would permit the use of the pesticide to try to combat a virus transmitted by aphids.

...

Neonicotinoids are considered so harmful that they were banned by the UK and the EU in 2018, but since then 12 countries, including France, Denmark and Spain, have also granted emergency permits for neonicotinoid treatments to go ahead.

...

This time last year there was an outcry when ministers first gave beet farmers the green light to apply the pesticide, although eventually it was not used because a cold winter killed off the aphids.

...

Minutes from a meeting of the Expert Committee on Pesticides say members agreed that the requirements for emergency authorisation had not been met and that pesticide water pollution caused by the decision would harm river life.

Even minute traces of neonicotinoid chemicals in crop pollen or wild flowers “play havoc with bees’ ability to forage and navigate, with catastrophic consequences for the survival of their colony”, according to the RSPB.

A recent study showed that even one instance of exposure of a “neonic” insecticide significantly harmed bees’ ability to produce offspring.

A third of the UK bee population is thought to have vanished in a decade, yet up to three-quarters of crop species are pollinated by bees, studies show.

...

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/bees-pesticide-ban-sugar-neonicotinoid-b1993512.html

There must be some slightly better solutions for the long term?

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #295 on: January 27, 2022, 06:23:19 AM »
Scientists find there are 70% fewer pollinators, due to air pollution\

"We knew from our previous lab studies that diesel exhaust can have negative effects on insect pollinators, but the impacts we found in the field were much more dramatic than we had expected.”

 “The findings are worrying because these pollutants are commonly found in the air many of us breathe every day. We know that these pollutants are bad for our health, and the significant reductions we saw in pollinator numbers and activity shows that there are also clear implications for the natural ecosystems we depend on.”
70% of all crop species depend on pollination

The analysis of data exposed there were 62-70% fewer pollinator visits to the plants located in polluted air.

This decrease was seen in numerous pollinator groups – particularly bees, moths, hoverflies and butterflies – and based on seed yield and other factors, there were also 83-90% fewer flower visits by these insects, and ultimately a 14-31% reduction in pollination."

https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/pollination-air-pollution/127964/

Bruce Steele

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #296 on: January 27, 2022, 06:09:20 PM »
Morganism, I wish the article on diesel pollution had a source.

kassy

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #297 on: January 27, 2022, 09:31:15 PM »
They should just direct link it but at least they named one scientist so:

Air pollution significantly reduces pollination by confusing butterflies and bees
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220119194035.htm

Anthropogenic air pollutants reduce insect-mediated pollination services
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0269749122000616?via%3Dihub
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kassy

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #298 on: February 25, 2022, 10:36:22 AM »
The world's insect population is in decline — and that's bad news for humans

Habitat loss, pesticides and climate change are threatening insect populations worldwide. In 2019, Biological Conservation reported that 40% of all insects species are declining globally and that a third of them are endangered.

...

On what the loss of pollinators means

You've got some places in China where the loss of insects is so great that armies of people have been told to ... fan out and go through orchards with ... paint brushes and feathers on sticks to pollinate crops by hand — a hugely ... labor intensive operation that obviously isn't really sustainable long-term. We need the insects around to do these jobs as they've done them for millions of years.

So there is this growing ... rumble of concern about food insecurity, especially when you think about what's happening with the overall trends. I mean, the world's population is growing. There's been a ... 300% increase in the volume of agricultural production dependent on animal pollination in the last 50 years. So we're losing pollinators at a time when we're demanding more and more pollination. We have more mouths to feed. We need more farmland. We need more intensively farmed farmland. At this kind of crucial moment, we're losing the pollinators that do that for us.

On the variety of insects that serve as pollinators

Bees get a lot of the focus and the attention when it comes to pollination, but there's a whole array of insects that provide that pollination service. In fact, three-quarters of the world's flowering plants and about a third of the world's food crops depend on pollinators at some stage. And so it's not just bees .... Flies are huge pollinators. That includes the midges that pollinate the cocoa crop that chocolate comes from. And there are wasps as well. Wasps are major pollinators. Again, another insect that's widely disliked but actually crucial for our environment.

Without these creatures, we would be without apples, cranberries, melons, almonds, broccoli, blueberries, cherries, I mean, the list goes on and on. We'd even be without ice cream, because alfalfa ... that is fed to cows ... is [pollinated by insects]. So we'd be without many of the kind of staples of our lives, many of the luxuries of our lives. Curries would become a historical dish, because cardamom would not be there, cumin would not be there. Many spices — many of the things that make our diets kind of colorful, interesting and nutritious — would be stripped from our lives without insects. That's a really important thing to think about when we're thinking about pollinator declines because many of the world's poor rely upon agriculture that's directly pollinated in their immediate surroundings, and without that, all of the nutrition is stripped from their diets. Malnutrition rates start to climb. ...The U.N. has warned that this is going to become a food security issue, something that the world needs to focus on quite acutely.

On the importance of the insects at the base of the food chain

Once you kind of yank insects out of the base of the food chain, everything kind of starts toppling away from above them, really. They're crucial in terms of just the basic foundations of forests and grassland ecosystems. We think about the placement of soil as a cycling of nitrogen through the soils that ensures that plants grow.

We may hate mosquitoes, but they provide a huge amount of food to frogs and then also birds. Once you start climbing up the food chain, you start affecting things that we really do value. So, as well as these declines that have been documented in insects, bird numbers have been reported to be down in several countries, and the birds that eat insects are faring far worse than the birds that are omnivorous, such as crows, for example. They provide a really important base to the food pyramid, and they provide a really crucial part of our overall environment.


...


On insect habitat loss

When we think about habitat loss, we think about the idea of the Amazon rainforest being burned down or chopped down. But a lot of the habitat loss is far more mundane. It's the conversion of a barren piece of land or seemingly barren piece of land into a Starbucks. It's the conversion of a field where wildflowers will grow into a field of soy or corn or another single crop. It's largely driven by agriculture. Some of it is also driven by urban sprawl. These are the laying down of highways, heavy industry and so on. So it's obviously a model that's exploded in Europe and North America, and that model is being transported elsewhere. You're seeing other countries adopt this method of farming large fields of single crops, dousing them with insecticides and other chemicals in order to boost their yields. So a lot of what we consider unproductive grounds, messy land, the kind of stuff the place is filled with wildflowers, with scrub, with kind of brambles and weeds, we call them weeds when they're in fact actually really important food providers for insects.

https://text.npr.org/1082752634
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kassy

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Re: Decline in insect populations
« Reply #299 on: March 09, 2022, 03:37:44 PM »
Fears for bees as US set to extend use of toxic pesticides that paralyse insects

The US Environmental Protection Agency is poised to allow the use of four of the most devastating chemicals to bees, butterflies and other insects to continue in America for the next 15 years, despite moves by the European Union to ban the use of toxins that have been blamed for widespread insect declines.

The EPA is widely expected to confirm a proposed plan outlined last year that will extend the use of imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, clothianidin and dinotefuran on US farmland for the next 15 years, even though the agency has noted “ecological risks of concern, particularly to pollinators and aquatic invertebrates”.

These four insecticides are all types of neonicotinoids, a class of chemicals that is widely used on crops to treat them for pests but has been found to cause devastation among non-target insects, such as bees. The chemicals assault receptors in an insect’s nerve synapse, causing uncontrollable shaking, paralysis and death.

Neonicotinoids are used across 150m acres of American cropland, an area roughly the size of Texas, and have contributed to the land becoming 48 times more toxic than it was a quarter of a century ago. The chemicals are water soluble and quickly leach out of plants into soils and streams, causing such harmful impacts to wildlife that Canada has restricted their use while the EU has banned the outdoor deployment of clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam.

...

“We are already seeing crashes in insect numbers and we don’t have another 15 years to waste,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“It’s frustrating to see the EPA go down this path. We really are at a crossroads – we can follow the science and the rest of the world or we can go out on our own and appease the chemical industry.”

...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/08/us-epa-toxic-pesticides-paralyse-bees-insects
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