A 30-meter pass in the Pyrenees through which insects migrate | Hacker News Reader

A 30-meter pass in the Pyrenees through which insects migrate

english.elpais.com

85 pointsbelter21 comments

> Works that document joint migrations with very different species are rare. “This is because the small insects that migrate are usually invisible in an extensive landscape, requiring specialized equipment such as entomological radars or nets supported by balloons for their detection,” explains Hawkes.

Hold up, there is a radar that detects bugs? Where can I get me one of those and why doesn’t every IDE come with one?

Seeing that for passes the measurement generally given is their height, not their width, the title is a bit confusing (at least for me): the pass is at a height of 2,273 m, and it's 30 m wide.

Why would you expect a pass in the pyrenees to be 30m in height? I don't think there's a single point that's that low

I have been expecting a range, in which there's a pass that's 30m in height below the average of the ridge: -----_---

(edit: apparently features like that exist, e.g. Roland's Breach)

So the pass must be running at 1500 FPS (flies per second)

If I was there I bet I would run like crysis or something

I was expecting it to be Roland’s Breach

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roland%27s_Brea...

Online presentation from last year by Will Hawkes the lead author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_alwE7b1do

I'll say the same thing here I said the other time this was posted inside the last 2 weeks: This is a very narrow ecological "corridor" which an accidental release of a nicotinoid pesticide could wreak havoc on.

You would think under global warming there were more opportunistic passing places now.

However, he explains this pass is likely to be one of the many routes that insects follow to cross the mountains. “Insects are channeled through the steep mountain valleys and then through the hills, since they are much lower than the peaks,” says Hawkes. “There are probably many more passes, all with millions of insects migrating each fall.”

Suggesting the Bujaruelo Pass is a good site, but hardly critical.

There's a rail tunnel through the Pyrenees as of 2005. I wonder if insects have started routing through there as well as I assume the grade is smoother. Plenty of species use other connections we build like canals before long.

Foxes have discovered how to get to the garden above the Canary Wharf Underground station in the London Docklands, which is not an easy thing to do with water surrounding the Isle of Dogs from three sides and heavy traffic from the North.

Aha.. I read it as somehow unique beyond its height, and so imprinted on the bugs as "the way" to go. If they have more then clearly this is not a bottleneck.

It seems this site was picked primarily because an historical study was done at the same location in the 1950's.

It worries me seeing this publicised - all it takes is one unhappy farmer to hear a ninth hand version of this down the pub, and to decide that this is why his crop is failing, that it’s Spanish/French immigrant insects, and that he needs to go up there and spray them all, for the wellbeing of his country and nature.

I mean, see sycamore gap. See all of it, all the time.

  > "see sycamore gap"

I'm not sure I understand; are you suggesting that chopping down the Sycamore Gap tree was performed to achieve some sort of crop outcome (or avoid some sort of crop destruction)?

The ongoing description of the incident is an act of vandalism, without any suggestion of a perceived (or actual) rationale.

Hoverflies migrate in vast numbers and they feed on vast numbers of greenfly. Your farmers need only worry if they stop.

While the scenario seems plausible, I don't think it would be a farmer.

Ah yes, those famously irrational, illogical and xenophobic farmers. Idiots that they are, they barely keep us with the ability to throw away vast amounts of food while still becoming morbidly obese. Those bumpkins, those peasants, I bet they don't even know what a B-tree is.

I live in farm country. I know a great many farmers. They know and love their land. They are also susceptible to propaganda and misinformation, and bad ideas spread virulently in a small and isolated population.

Where I live, for instance, poor practices (up and down ploughing, use of pesticides, exclusive monocultures and no crop rotation) have resulted in awful topsoil depletion and dwindling yields - which is universally accepted to be the fault of Spain, as they “keep all of the water from the river behind dams” - never mind that a cursory inspection of the watercourse from space reveals precisely zero dams in Spain.

They aren’t stupid people - but a general low level of education and a barren media sphere allows odd ideas to take hold, unchallenged.

Everybody's susceptible to propaganda, including software developers, of course.

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