Where have all the insects gone?
sciencemag.org
sciencemag.org
I remember butterflies being everywhere in Spring in this area when I was a kid. Fields and air full of 'em for weeks. Monarchs especially, but all kinds. I haven't seen that kind of thing even once in probably a decade, at least.
And the windshield thing. I hadn't really thought about it, but I remember my parents having to scrape the windshield just about every gas-station stop to get rid of several really bad splatters. Now I rarely get even one bad one, and almost never need to scrape, even on road trips.
And mine. BTW I was wondering what use will be that famous "ark" they're building with seeds - in a world without insects for pollination? Like having a backup of half of your data only...
Edit: clarified.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like eating insects is all the rage when it comes to talking about the future of food...?
It's not really surprising to me though, at least in my neighborhood in Toronto there has been massive urbanization; there are no more wild fields. Parks and even hydro fields (land under power lines) are being mowed bi-weekly, destroying any chance of native plant biodiversity. I haven't seen a mosquito in literally years. But to be fair once you leave the city, not much has changed; insects are still plentiful.
I'd be wary to draw any conclusions from this study, since the areas the researchers set up their monitoring stations may have experienced a similar level of urbanization.
That's a thing? I thought that since the house I grew up in at the time didn't have A/C and had a leaky roof just meant that thunderstorms were more important to the family. Not having A/C meant that the windows were open on hot days when thunderstorms were more likely, then had to hurry and close them when one happened. The leaky roof meant get some buckets and towels.
Mid 90's - Mid 2000s: We did a 10 hour road trip twice every summer to visit family, and always joked about how the car had a mustache because the front bumper was peppered with bugs. 2007/2011 - During college, I used to do 6-8 hour road drives up and down Florida to visit friends and we used to catch a butterfly or 2 on the window. 2011-2013 - After graduating college, I made a few more of those drives and I can't remember catching a butterfly in the windshield wipers. I've never had the bumper-mustache problem since becoming a driver, either.
The only bug that seems to thrive now-a-days are mosquitos. Still plenty of those in Florida... probably less, but I don't have any good childhood reference
Those little flying bastards are plentiful in southern Europe and they can get real fat on human blood and make a surprisingly bloody mess when splatted. They would definitely leave a mark on a white car if it hit them.
No one can prove that insecticides are responsible for killing insects? If only someone would do some sort of study on this, or perhaps if we somehow had some way to know the purpose or function of pesticides and insecticides.
Pesticides contain warnings about being carcinogenic, related to brain and heart failure, harmful to children, deadly to pets, harmful to plants, and destroys helpful bacteria.
But other than that, it's part of a balanced breakfast.
Reminds me of the "firefighters" in fahrenheit 451
The conquering grounds for the corporatocracy is also the developing world, a place which naively swallows whatever any of the reigning superpowers throw at it (hint: India is not/never will be a superpower). Very sad this.
Please note that organic foods still use pesticides, even though the pesticides come from "natural sources". Keep in mind that "natural sources" doesn't mean anything-- arsenic is naturally occurring. :) https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/httpblogs...
On the coast it is very common to see "foggers" driving around spraying pesticides in the air hoping to flood the area with enough chemicals to kill all the mosquitoes.
(It's easy to be snarky.)
Some scientists suspected that neonectide pesticides were linked to the decline in insect populations, particularly bees. Despite the fact that this connection was not fully proven, many EU countries banned the use of neonectide pesticides in 2013.
While bee populations recovered slightly, the issue is that bee populations started recovering before the ban was even issued. Also the recovery was also felt in Canada, where there was no pesticide ban 1. This suggests that the decline in bee population was more related to climate than to insecticides . . . suggesting similar possibilities for other insects.
Yes insecticides kill insects but I don't think that's enough to conclude that they are causing the general massive collapse in insect colonies - which is a relatively recent phenomenon, while insecticides have been used for quite some time.
1. http://www.agprofessional.com/news/bee-population-rising-aro...
Compared to 30 years ago, drugs and pesticides are everyday items now.
This could easily explain the more recent detection of insects like bees being affected as levels of pesticides in the environment could now have reached high enough levels.
[1]https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-10/documents...
[2]:https://ourworldindata.org/fertilizer-and-pesticides/#pestic...
Given the rest of the Republican's resistance in stemming pollution, CO2, NOx's, plastics, and other nasties, we have to do this ourselves. I look at the boom of comments on Tesla's Powerwall and solar roof as a great way to help. We also have to do what we can in our communities and state to turn this tide..
We have to make this a National Security issue, and a State Security issue. Who cares about wildlife? But most certainly the farmers care about weather. And everyone affected cares about oil spills from pipelines. It's time to re-frame this, and challenge this on the same plank of "Think of the Children", primarily because that approach does seem to work.
(0) https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/26589529219124838...
Maybe this is affecting the "good" insects while the "bad" ones are thriving...
Data demonstrates that disease carrying pests like mosquitoes and ticks are proliferating, while pollinators are vanishing.
That is really not a good trend.
[in]"one of their earliest trapping sites from 1989, the total mass of their catch had fallen by nearly 80%"
What about the other 88 sites? What about the percentage decline in the other 11 declining sites? How were the sites chosen? How have the sites changed over the years?
This is alarmist ecological drama. Some readers on this website are extrapolating the results from a single experiment at a single site to the entire world. And I think Science magazine did a poor job of reporting this correctly.
Here's a link to another alarmist post about this study. Note the url:
http://www.bouldercountybeekeepers.org/insect-biomass-declin...
Here's a link to AFAICT a copy of the paper that started this brouhaha. Read it and be questionably impressed:
http://www.bouldercountybeekeepers.org/wp-content/uploads/20...
The authors of the paper are doing good work, but the alarmism here on HN far exceeds the scope of any validity of the original paper. People should be wary of their confirmation bias.
And if a HN reader cannot make a reasonable judgment about the scope of this study, I doubt that (s)he would be successful in an enterprise such as Machine Learning, given that science and statistics are the very basis of ML.
OTOH Woody Allen once said, and I begrudgingly admit he has a strong point, "Showing up is 80 percent of life".
Got one of this for my lawn about 8 years ago and it was probably the best investment i've made for the lawn. Not only does it remove the maintenance but it also keeps the grass cut to a certain length, drying out the weeds and fertilising the grass with the smaller cut off parts. On top of that it's electric.
I agree, trees would be better but in your situation i can only recommend it.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, mine been running for 8 years with only 1 battery replacement and the occasional razor blade replacement. The climate where i live is really rainy and it has survived so far.
you can manually do both of these things though
*http://www2.fiskars.com/Products/Gardening-and-Yard-Care/Ree...
The big problem with reel mowers is that they only work well when the grass is already short. If the grass grows too tall (which isn't that much), the mower just pushes the grass over, or gets bogged down in it. So you have to be absolutely religious in cutting the grass on time. I've used reel mowers at a couple of houses I've lived in; they were great when the grass area of the yard was tiny and the grass didn't grow too quickly. But where I am now, there's just no way.
Then again, you get outside any of the cities and the windshield gets bug splattered as always.
Trillions upon trillions of insects versus humanity? I'd bet on the insects.
Yup, we'll just be left with the insects that can adapt quickly - cockroaches, aphids, ants - and not the insects we need/want - bees, butterflies, etc.
We are on the path, but we still didn't create something that Nature couldn't outdo. And then there are those interstellar (e.g. supernovas) and pan-galactic (e.g. gamma ray bursts) killers...
We'd have to spend a while building a supply of big cobalt-salted bombs because the nuclear arsenals we've actually had have come nowhere near to the level required to wipe out all people let alone all insects.
It is conceivable a few might live, but it is also entirely possible the survivors would be too irradiated to sustain a breeding populations. Vast plant populations would die off, only those not directly blasted and able to survive a few years of artificial global winter survive. This presumes the dust is also non-reflective, because if it lowers the Earth's albedo enough it could trigger an ice age. If that happens then pretty much no individuals survive the triple threat of nuclear blasting, perpetual winter and loss of vegetation, unless they have some uncommon radiation resistance and incredibly low nutrition requirements. In this last paragraph was I talking about humans or insects? Doesn't matter; the cost of nuclear war is too high for us to talk about it lightly, because it is an awesome power that can destroy us if used lightly.
Pretty much what I went through, except actually less than ten miles from the Whitehouse.
As for the cars...
More cars and more car miles this year than in yesteryear means fewer bugsplats per vehicle mile. I would assume that, once a vehicle has swept past a volume, the bug population in that volume is restored by a "random walk/fly" process that depends on the average number of insects per unit volume in the area surrounding the highways.
Also vehicles pass in clumps depending on traffic patterns and time of day, so a bug that might have splatted on your vehicle is instead swept up by a driver in front of you.
Over time, insect populations for flying insects near roadways may decline, given the death rate is higher there. OTOH that may vary depending on whether the species is attracted/repelled by light, heat, roadkill, fumes, etc.
As for the article...
The article said: "the Krefeld Entomological Society... in 2013 .. When they returned to one of their earliest trapping sites from 1989, the total mass of their catch had fallen by nearly 80%. "
Note the word "one" as in one of "100 nature reserves in western Europe". The article continues:
"Through more direct comparisons, the group—which had preserved thousands of samples over 3 decades—found dramatic declines across more than a dozen other sites."
So, perhaps 12 of 100 sites show a "dramatic decline". That's about 8% of sites, so what about the other 88 sites? Did numbers there go up, decline or what?
Like the article says, time for some good science. But NOT time for alarmism. The sky is not falling.
All-in-all, pretty anecdotal stuff that could also attract some fun modeling. But first maybe, let's get some good solid science.
"Over that time the group, the Krefeld Entomological Society, has seen the yearly insect catches fluctuate, as expected. But in 2013 they spotted something alarming. When they returned to one of their earliest trapping sites from 1989, the total mass of their catch had fallen by nearly 80%. Perhaps it was a particularly bad year, they thought, so they set up the traps again in 2014. The numbers were just as low. Through more direct comparisons, the group—which had preserved thousands of samples over 3 decades—found dramatic declines across more than a dozen other sites."
"The mass of insects collected by monitoring traps in the Orbroicher Bruch nature reserve in northwest Germany dropped by 78% in 24 years."
To extrapolate from that to the world is a mistake. From what I believe is the original paper (copy at http://www.bouldercountybeekeepers.org/wp-content/uploads/20... ):
"The results show that, in the same two areas, sampled in the years 1989 and 2013, there was a dramatic fall in the number of flying insects.
Using the same traps, in the same areas, significant reductions of insect populations, of more than 75%, were found.
Our data confirms, that in the areas studied, less than 25% of the original number of flying insects collected in 1989, were still present in 2013.
Orboicher Bruch Area
The Orboicher Bruch, to the Northwest of Krefeld, is a designated Nature Reserve of around 100 hectares (220 acres). Due to the reserve’s relatively remote location and its rugged landscape, intensive farming came to the area only recently."
It wouldn't surprise me at all if a modern Land Rover was more aerodynamic than a 1969 Mustang. The Land Rover wouldn't look it of course, but the 1969 Mustang had a pretty steep windshield and a front that probably did lots of crazy stuff to the air:
http://cdn.barrett-jackson.com/staging/carlist/items/Fullsiz...
When I was a kid there were a ton of grasshoppers around. Now kids don't even know what they are.
A related observation I have made is that ALL the frogs have disappeared leaving only toads. I recall reading somewhere that this is due to UV radiation that kills off the eggs.
Its going to be a silent planet soon
Not sure if it's related, but I rarely see dew any more either.
If any of you care about wildlife, you can actively contribute to its preservation just by buying a piece of land and letting it be.
On a trip "up north" my car still needs a good washing to get all the bugs off when I get home. I still found TFA interesting, and the traps are another data point.
The planet; as-in this rocky, water-world orbiting Sol, will exist for BILLIONS of years.
The _life_ on this planet AS WE KNOW IT is dying, along with ourselves. That is a huge difference and one that needs to be repeated with as much clarity as possible.
Will homo-sapiens still exist in 10,000 years? maybe. 100,000 years? doubtful. 1,000,000 years? nope.
Will single-celled life forms, virus, prions, etc still exist? Probably.
This entire pyramid that we have existed at the top of is brutally fragile and will not continue as it is forever. To repeat one of most favorite quotes: "Nature is in a constant state of recovering from the previous disaster."
This is the distinction. Something as immutable as granite can't die. We can barely wrap our brains around the concept of water being able to erode such permanence. How can you expect them to believe such histrionics? But life, that is more delicate and temporary then a snowflake in the Sahara.
Well, to nitpick a bit, not billions, for the "water-world" part. A few hundred million. It'll likely be quite parched by the 1 billion mark. Large, complex life forms are expected to have a Really Bad Time starting in the 500-600 million year range and shortly (geologically speaking) be gone entirely, assuming no acute planet-scale disasters before then.
Question regarding the "loss" of the oceans:
Won't that turn the atmosphere into 'soup'?
What they are saying is that ecosystem which is on the planet is going to hell including the ability for said ecosystem to support life. Either all life, or more specifically the ability to support human life.
No one, no one, is thinking the literal planet is going to go boom.
Do you honestly think the person who said this doesn't understand that rocks aren't alive and will keep on existing whether there is life on it or not?
This is not a productive comment. Everyone knows that "the planet" in an environmental context refers to the living things on Earth. It's an extremely common and universal metaphor. I have no idea why threads always have this one guy who feels like pointing out that the metaphorical language isn't literally true is insightful.
If civilization does not collapse in the next mere 1,000 years, I'm very bullish on technology indistinguishable from magic, which would come very handy in assuring our continued survival well into the billions of years.
We are, however, in the midst of the sixth great extinction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction . The evidence for this is pretty dang convincing, even independent of things like global climate change, and it has been going on for quite a while now, starting with the disappearance of mega-fauna from the American continent.
If you do find anyone attempting to "minimize" this fact, you might try pointing something out: each prior great extinction was accompanied by a replacement of the "dominant" species on the Earth. As the current reigning "dominant" species, this seems like something that might be very concerning to humans...
Except this time we are the cause of the extinction. I think that's a pretty important difference.
What is different, in this case, is that in all past cases if the dominant species played a role in bringing about a mass extinction it was almost certainly an accident. We have the (possibly small) chance of potentially averting our own replacement as dominant species, if we're smart...
You're doing exactly what I'm saying playing with semantics. For all intents and purposes on the timescales that we actually care about, the planet is dying.
And they're all constantly trying to build nests in or near my house. I thought this was universal knowledge...
Although I thought I had done a good job of making it sound tongue in cheek.
I used to love it when I almost ran into them but they saw my car and freak out as if to say "Pull up!" and the dragonfly banks away a max throttle.
Also I'm noticing more wasps than usual.
I was listening to a podcast about this folding microscope thing and they were talking about how this special "cell?" becomes a coil and is able to pull oxygen/becomes the 'lungs' for the insect... pretty neat.
If you get shot in the lungs lay on your side to try keep them open. PSA, I don't know I looked it up one day.
The insects with DNA that made them more likely to hit a windshield didn't live long enough to breed. :-)