NYT warns of 'Insect Apocalypse"

www.nytimes.com...

there were documented downward slides of well-studied bugs, including various kinds of bees, moths, butterflies and beetles. In Britain, as many as 30 to 60 percent of species were found to have diminishing ranges. Larger trends were harder to pin down, though a 2014 review in Science tried to quantify these declines by synthesizing the findings of existing studies and found that a majority of monitored species were declining, on average by 45 percent.

Entomologists also knew that climate change and the overall degradation of global habitat are bad news for biodiversity in general, and that insects are dealing with the particular challenges posed by herbicides and pesticides, along with the effects of losing meadows, forests and even weedy patches to the relentless expansion of human spaces. There were studies of other, better-understood species that suggested that the insects associated with them might be declining, too. People who studied fish found that the fish had fewer mayflies to eat. Ornithologists kept finding that birds that rely on insects for food were in trouble: eight in 10 partridges gone from French farmlands; 50 and 80 percent drops, respectively, for nightingales and turtledoves. Half of all farmland birds in Europe disappeared in just three decades

not sure if baseline info on bugs is accurate
plenty of accounts of Bees disappearing, which is a bad thing for plants and by extension the rest of us.
are all those pesticides accumulating in the environment?

I'm in Merryland and I had no shortage of flies and mosquitoes this year.


anyone notice changes in the insect population around you lately?

Insects will be around long after our extinction. Bet on it. Some won't make it, some will evolve.

Dragon flies have been around about 300 million years.

I think they'll survive us and climate change.

bees, I hardly saw any bees this summer. I can't imagine that will be good for the pollination of our food supply.

I just hope to live long enough to see Bayer sued into the dustbin of history. monsanto will be the poison pill that killed em.

a reply to: ClovenSky

Stink bugs are thriving

originally posted by: ausername
Insects will be around long after our extinction. Bet on it. Some won't make it, some will evolve.

Dragon flies have been around about 300 million years.

I think they'll survive us and climate change.

Not if Monsanto has their way.

a reply to: ElGoobero

The bees on the farm where I live vary with what crops the farmers around us grow. Some years, we get tons of honey. Whatever they spray on peas, though, decimates the bee hives.

originally posted by: ElGoobero
I'm in Merryland and I had no shortage of flies and mosquitoes this year.

With regards to flies and mosquitoes, for the most part, their populations would only flourish around us - due to the fact that they feed on our mess or our blood... the more of us, the more of them.

But there's certainly far more species of insects that would rather not have anything to do with us, and they're reliant on the bush (grass, plants, trees, etc). At the end of the day it was always an inevitability that as human populations continue to spread at the rate and manner in which they do (which means habitat destruction) that the eventual toll on wildlife (from insects up) would be quite high.

If humans would care enough about maintaining a healthy balance between the human and wildlife populations, there'd be more effort in establishing laws/policy that require a max population density/area of development relative to the available native bush land for any particular region/area, so that a healthy balance between humans and wildlife can be established and maintained.

originally posted by: ausername
Insects will be around long after our extinction. Bet on it. Some won't make it, some will evolve.

Dragon flies have been around about 300 million years.

I think they'll survive us and climate change.

So that means that the far left will always prevail.

Scary. But the good news is that if they survive like dragon flies, statistically socialism is bound to work at least once in 300 million years.

As far ad NYC having a massive insect problem.

I heard there is a badass named vasiliy fet that can lock that # down.

I'd roll with him.

i love bee's, i feel bad for there decline. Not just for them but for all of us.

Bee's have been decimated, maybe 10% of the #s seen just a few years back.

a reply to: ElGoobero

Insects have survived millions of years of climate change. What makes this time in history any different than a million years ago or 10 million? Nothing, except Globalists trying to make me feel sorry for mosquitoes.

Bees are rare to see where I live. Those big fat fluffy cute ones, ultra rare. I used to see them a lot. The Ag farmers here blow insecticide on corn, cotton, soybeans, and wheat like it’s going out of style. They use airplanes mostly, and those guys are spraying treetop height, you can see the drift of the chemicals. Not good.

You can buy those chemical “drift detectors” cheap, possibly get them free, it’ll capture any chemical drift, then the company that makes them comes and collects the data for study. Also using it for fining the chemical applicator.

a reply to: ElGoobero

The 'Insect Apocalypse' has been here for a while.. In Germany they did a 27 years study and found that the biomass of flying insects had decreased by 82%!!!

Alarm bells!!!

I have noticed over the last few years, that in the summer there are less and less dead insects on our car...



Plant plants...!

Here in my neck of the woods in West Central Lower Michigan, no problems I've noticed except that Monarch Butterflies have been getting extremely rare these past seasons (not that they have been that numerous in the past). I've haven't been out looking for the Karner Blue Butterfly (a locally endangered species) lately, but in the past I've found colonies of a couple dozen or more during June, when they were mating around the wild lupines.

Just a summer or two ago, I found a very unusual variety of northern black widow spider on my front door jam. It was so pretty with sky blue markings around the red hour glass, that I moved it to some weeds across the road. The moths are numerous and of an amazing diversity of species.

Green locusts and field crickets are thriving. Mayfiles and Dobson flies (adult hellgrammites) are in strong numbers. Amphibians are doing good, reptiles could be better, but the birds are doing great. I even see bats regularly. So the dependent species higher on the food chain seem to be doing OK round here.

There are so many strange bugs of all kinds here, that I am certain there are varieties of species and a number of completely unidentified species yet to be discovered by entomologists. I've found trapdoor spiders here that I could find no references of any in Michigan, however, I may not have tried hard enough to known for certain.

We have a fairly healthy and natural wooded environment in the Manistee National Forest area of Michigan. An abundance of diverse and mostly natural habitats is the key to a thriving abundance of insects.

ETA: I forgot to mention that the European honey bees are doing really well (they love clover) and there are all kinds of wild honey bees, bumble bees, flies, ants, wasps and hornets that all visit the wildflowers around my home. My garden vegetables never fail to produce fruit and viable seeds.

Brit's figured out that part of what was pouring salt on the bees game is so many of the wildflowers were being replaced by highly hybridized flowers that tend to happen to produce great looking blooms but hardly any pollen. Bees arent the only bugs that get set off by teh pollens.

along with the effects of losing meadows, forests and even weedy patches to the relentless expansion of human spaces.

Visit Naples, FL. The entire city is more neatly pavered and highly groomed than a resort.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Southwest Michigan here and i noticed a lot more Monarch Butterflies than the last couple of years. I think there's a lot less senseless field mowing going on. I mean where somebody buys 10 acres and turn it all into lawn. We mow about an acre of the 20 we have but the wife would like it all mowed but NO!!

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: ElGoobero

Insects have survived millions of years of climate change. What makes this time in history any different than a million years ago or 10 million? Nothing, except Globalists trying to make me feel sorry for mosquitoes.

Climate change isn't killing them - instead it is our effort to eradicate bugs with chemical weapons that is causing this.

We are winning the world war vs the bugs!
Kinda sucks we will die shortly afterwards because we need bugs, but hey, we Won so who cares?

a reply to: mikell

It's good to know you have seen more Monarchs down there. I imagine you have some tallgrass prairie habitat in your area like I do. Tallgrass species can be found all over here but there are some good examples of prairie remnants left. Wildflowers include clovers, blazing star, orange butterfly weed, common milkweed, other milkweeds, wild lupines, Coreopsis, wild asters, and a long list that even includes prickly pears.

Of course there are numerous insect species that rely on the prairie habitat including the northern black widow, red-winged locust, and a host of other spiders and insects that depend on specific native plants for their survival. From what I've observed, a diverse mosaic of sizable habitats is what is best for all wildlife, like our mix of woods, wetlands, fields, savanna lands, prairies and agriculture. These days, with all the invasive plants (including exotic plants used for gardens and yards) it makes it so that the native plants are rare and exotic now.

ETA: It should be noted that I personally don't believe that agriculture is necessarily bad considering that beans, corn, pumpkins and other agricultural species are actually native plants. But I'd also be suspicious of any herbicides, pesticides and other run off as well as any large commercial farms in general.

Ask Monsanto and the globalists for the real truth as to why bees and other insects are disappearing. a reply to: ElGoobero