Where are the insects?

This is in the tropics!

Brazil: "not a single insect"

The sudden loss of insects on Puerto Rica and the Sixth Mass Extinction

We live in the midst of the sixth great Extinction and no one gives a fuck

Why scientists are so worried by the huge, sudden loss of insects

A stunning paper on Puerto Rican insects is just one story in an age of mass extinction.

Puerto Rico’s protected rainforests are losing insects — fast. Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket/Getty Images

Vox,

17 October, 2018

In Puerto Rico’s rainforest, scientists have observed an astounding loss of life at the very base of the food web. It’s the insects.

As an alarming new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences outlines, between 1976 and 2013, the number of invertebrates (like insects, spiders, and centipedes) in the Luquillo rainforest caught in survey nets plummeted by a factor of four or eight. When measured by the number caught in sticky traps, invertebrates declined by a factor of 60. These dramatic drops occurred despite the fact that the forest is a protected wildlife area.

The researchers note that this loss of invertebrates — which serve as food for many other forms of life in the ecosystem — has also coincided with losses of birds, lizards, and frogs. “The food web appears to have been obliterated from the bottom,” the Washington Post’s Ben Guarino reported on the study. Guarino’s story quotes one invertebrate expert who called the research “hyper alarming.”

The report is just one example of a larger, troubling trend: Insects — including yes, bees — and other critters are rapidly disappearing around the world. A 2017 study in Germany noted a 75 percent decline in flying insects over three decades. “The widespread insect biomass decline is alarming,” the authors wrote, “ever more so as all traps were placed in protected areas that are meant to preserve ecosystem functions and biodiversity.”

There’s no one reason why so many critters are dying, and researchers are still unclear on what’s driving the change. Climate change (and changing drought and weather conditions) is strongly implicated. And it’s also partly due to environmental toxins and possibly pesticides. But it’s fair to say they’re mainly dying because humans are changing the world for the worse.

Humans are driving a huge array of species to extinction

A baby monkey is cuddled by its mother to keep warm as the sub-zero temperatures freeze life during a fresh snowfall in Tangmarg.

 Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images The world is losing biodiversity, fast. If you take stock of all the studies that point to the fact we’re living in an age of mass extinction, perhaps even the sixth mass extinction, it can all feel overwhelming.

Mammals, the branch of the animal kingdom to which we belong, are also in peril, another study, also published in PNAS this week, illustrates. More than 300 mammal species have been wiped out since humans overran the world after the last ice age (and an additional 25 percent of all mammals alive today are threatened with extinction). The study asks a simple question: How many years would it take for evolution to naturally replace all the species that have died as a result of humans?

Their answer: 3-7 million years. Science writer Ed Yong points out “that’s at least 10 times as long as we have even existed as a species.”

It’s important to take stock of what we lose when we lose species. A 2017 report in Science Advances found that around 60 percent of primate species are threatened with extinction — all due to human activity.

The report found every member of the primate family Hominidae (great apes, which includes gorillas and chimpanzees) is endangered or critically threatened (except for us). Around 87 percent of Indriidae (larger lemurs) are similarly endangered or threatened.

Think of what that means: Primates are our closest relatives on Earth. If we can understand them better, we can understand ourselves. Here’s how Carl Zimmer at the New York Times explains it:

The first primates evolved roughly 80 million years ago, and then split into the living lineages over millions of years. By comparing our biology to those of other primates, we have learned about the evolution of our brains, our vision and our vulnerability to diseases.

But don’t necessarily consider primate losses to be more important, or painful, than insect losses. Insects and other arthropods form a hugely important foundation in many ecosystem animal food webs. They also are the world’s pollinators, ensuring that plants produce new seeds and new generations. Without the foundation of insects, the ecosystem collapses.

We need to take stock of the wildlife we’ve lost

Here’s one more sobering example of just how many species around the world are threatened.

The past few decades have seen a massive die-off of amphibians, which scientists fear are some of the most vulnerable animals to losses in a rapidly changing world. That may be because amphibians need both healthy aquatic and terrestrial environments to thrive. Change just one enough, and species suffer.

In 2010, a survey of 25,780 species of vertebrates found that 41 percent of the amphibians were threatened with extinction. “On a per-species basis, amphibians are in an especially dire situation, suffering the double jeopardy of exceptionally high levels of threat coupled with low levels of conservation effort,” the study noted. Since just 1970, 200 species of frog have perished.

Earlier this year, researchers, tried to estimate a weight for all of life on Earth. It was a fun exercise, putting humanity’s relative small weight on Earth in dramatic contrast to the weight of all the other forms of life. There are an estimated 550 gigatons of carbon of life in the world. And we all weigh just .06 gigatons.

If everyone on the planet were to step on one side of a giant balance scale, and all the bacteria on Earth were to be placed on the other side, we’d shoot violently upward. That’s because all the bacteria on Earth combined are about 1,166 times more massive than all the humans.

We’re a small part of the living world, but yet, we make such an outsized impact on it.

The authors of the weight estimate were also sure to calculate what was missing from their figures. They estimated that the mass of wild land mammals is seven times lower than it was before humans arrived. Similarly, marine mammals, including whales, are a fifth of the weight they used to be because we’ve hunted so many to near extinction.

Although plants are still the dominant form of life on Earth, the scientists suspect there used to be approximately twice as many of them — before humanity started clearing forests to make way for agriculture and our civilization. Animals are going extinct 1,000 to 10,000 faster than you’d expect if no humans lived on Earth.

Insects dying off in Puerto Rico may seem like a small — but shocking — story. What’s all the more alarming is that stories like it are happening everywhere.

With so much devastating and widespread loss, it’s hard to say where we should focus our attention — other than just working to stem the progression of climate change. In Science, Jonathan Baillie, the chief scientist at the National Geographic Society, and Ya-Ping Zhang, the vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, argued that half of all land should be protected for wildlife by 2050, to give plants and animals a chance to thrive.

This is a lofty, perhaps unrealistic goal. But we’ve taken so much from wildlife. We need to think more about how to stop taking environments away from plants and animals. “Simply put,” they write in Science, “there is finite space and energy on the planet, and we must decide how much of it we’re willing to share.”

The 'Bugpocalypse'

'One of Most Disturbing Articles I Have Ever Read' Scientist Says of Study Detailing Climate-Driven 'Bugpocalypse'

"A truly scary new study finds that insect populations in protected Puerto Rican rainforests have fallen as much as 60-fold."

byJake Johnson, staff writer

"This study in PNAS is a real wake-up call—a clarion call—that the phenomenon could be much, much bigger, and across many more ecosystems," David Wagner, an invertebrate conservation expert at the University of Connecticut. (Photo: Alias 0591/Flickr/cc)

When a scientist who studies the essential role insects play in the health of the ecosystem calls a new study on the dramatic decline of bug populations around the world "one of the most disturbing articles" he's ever read, it's time for the world to pay attention.

"Climate warming is the driving force behind the collapse of the forest's food web."
—Bradford Lister and Andres Garcia

 
The article in question is a report published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) showing that in addition to annihilating hundreds of mammal species, the human-caused climate crisis has also sparked a global "bugpocalypse" that will only continue to accelerate in the absence of systemic action to curb planetary warming.
 

"This study in PNAS is a real wake-up call—a clarion call—that the phenomenon could be much, much bigger, and across many more ecosystems," David Wagner, an invertebrate conservation expert at the University of Connecticut, said in response to the new report. "This is one of the most disturbing articles I have ever read."

Authored by Bradford Lister of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Andres Garcia of National Autonomous University of Mexico, the study found that "[a]rthropods, invertebrates including insects that have external skeletons, are declining at an alarming rate."

"We compared arthropod biomass in Puerto Rico's Luquillo rainforest with data taken during the 1970s and found that biomass had fallen 10 to 60 times," the researchers write. "Our analyses revealed synchronous declines in the lizards, frogs, and birds that eat arthropods. Over the past 30 years, forest temperatures have risen 2.0 °C, and our study indicates that climate warming is the driving force behind the collapse of the forest's food web. If supported by further research, the impact of climate change on tropical ecosystems may be much greater than currently anticipated."

As the climate crisis intensifies, Lister and Garcia continued, "the frequency and intensity of hurricanes in Puerto Rico are expected to increase, along with the severity of droughts and an additional 2.6–7 °C temperature increase by 2099, conditions that collectively may exceed the resilience of the rainforest ecosystem."

"Holy crap," Wagner of the University of Connecticut told the Washington Post when he learned of the 60-fold drop of bug populations in Puerto Rico's Luquillo rainforest. "If anything, I think their results and caveats are understated. The gravity of their findings and ramifications for other animals, especially vertebrates, is hyperalarming."

The latest disturbing evidence of the destruction the climate crisis is inflicting across the globe comes just a week after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that the world must cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 in order to avert global catastrophe as soon as 2040.

"Unfortunately, we have deaf ears in Washington," concluded Louisiana State University entomologist Timothy Schowalter, who has studied the Luquillo rainforest for decades.

Insect Armageddon

Insect Decimation Upstages Global Warming

by ROBERT HUNZIKER

Counterpunch,

27 March, 2018

Everybody’s heard about global warming. It is one of the most advertised existential events of all time. Who isn’t aware? However, there’s a new kid on the block. An alarming loss of insects will likely take down humanity before global warming hits maximum velocity.

For the immediate future, the Paris Accord is riding the wrong horse, as global warming is a long-term project compared to the insect catastrophe happening right now! Where else is found 40% to 90% species devastation?

The worldwide loss of insects is simply staggering with some reports of 75% up to 90%, happening much faster than the paleoclimate record rate of the past five major extinction events. It is possible that some insect species may already be close to total extinction!

It’s established that species evolve and then go extinct over thousands and millions of years as part of nature’s course, but the current rate of devastation is simply “off the charts, and downright scary.”

Without any doubt, it is difficult to imagine how humanity survives without insects, which are dropping dead in bunches right before our eyes. For proof, how many insect splats do people clean off windshields nowadays? Not many…. How many fireflies do children chase at night? Not many….

Several naturalists and environmental writers believe the massive loss of insects has everything to do with three generations of industrialized farming and the vast tide of poisons pouring over the landscape year-after-year, especially since the end of WWII. Ours is the first-ever pesticide-based agricultural society. Dreadfully, it’s an experiment that is going dead wrong… all of a sudden!

Insects are basic to thousands of food chains; for example, the disappearance of Britain’s farmland birds by over 50% in 40 years. Additionally, North America and Europe species of birds like larks, swallows, and swifts that feast on flying insects have plummeted.

But, these are only a few of many, many recorded examples of massive numbers of wildlife dropping dead right before our eyes.

Significantly, insects are the primary source for ecosystem creation and support. The world literally crumbles apart without mischievous burrowing, forming new soil, aerating soil, pollinating food crops, etc. Nutrition for humans happens because insects pollinate.

One of the world’s best and oldest entomological resources is Krefeld Entomological Society (est. 1905) tracking insect abundance at more than 100 nature reserves. They first noticed a significant drop off of insects in 2013 when the total mass of catch fell by 80%. Again, in 2014 the numbers were just as low. Subsequently, the society discovered huge declines in several observation sites throughout Western Europe.

For example, Krefeld data for hoverflies, a pollinator often mistaken for a bee, registered 17,291 hoverflies from 143 species trapped in a reserve in 1989. Whereas by 2014 at the same location, 2,737 individuals from 104 species, down 84%. (Source: Gretchen Vogel, Where Have All The Insects Gone? Science Magazine, May 10, 2017)

Down Under in Australia anecdotal evidence similarly shows an unusual falloff of insect populations. For example, Jack Hasenpusch, an entomologist and owner of the Australian Insect Farm collects swarms of wild insects but now says: “I’ve been wondering for the last few years why some of the insects have been dropping off … This year has really taken the cake with the lack of insects, it’s left me dumbfounded, I can’t figure out what’s going on.” (Source: Mark Rigby, Insect Population Decline Leaves Australian Scientists Scratching For Solutions, ABC Far North, Feb. 23, 2018)

Concerned, Mr. Hasenpusch talked to entomologists in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, New Caledonia, and Italy. All of them related similar experiences.

According to entomologist Dr. Cameron Webb / University of Sydney, researchers around the world widely acknowledge the problem of insect decline but are at a loss to explain the causes.

Obviously, something dreadful is suddenly happening throughout the entire biosphere. The insect catastrophe is a relatively new phenomenon that has caught society unaware, blindsided. Interestingly, 97% of the Animal Kingdom consists of invertebrates such as insects, crabs, lobsters, clams, octopuses, jellyfish, and worms, etc.

Scientists have been noticing the problem for some time now, but widespread public knowledge is simply not there. Jürgen Deckert, insect custodian at the Berlin Natural History Museum is worried that “there’s a risk we will only really take notice once it is too late.” (Source: Christian Schwägerl, What’s Causing the Sharp Decline in Insects, and Why It Matters, YaleEnvironment360, July 6, 2012)

The Senckenberg Entomological Institute/Frankfurt recorded a 40% decline in butterfly and Burnet moth species over a period of decades.

A Stanford University global index developed by Rodlfo Dirzo showed a 45% decline for invertebrates over four decades. Of 3,623 terrestrial invertebrate species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, 42% are classified as threatened with extinction.

The Zoological Society of London in 2012 published a major survey concluding that many insect populations are in severe decline. And in both the U.S. and Europe researchers have recorded 40% declines in bee populations because of colony collapse disorder and sharp losses of monarch butterflies.

“Of particular concern is the widespread use of pesticides and their impact on non-target species. Many conservationists view a special class of pesticides called neonicotinoids — used over many years in Europe until a partial ban in 2013 — as the prime suspect for insect losses… “There are many indications that what we see is the result of a widespread poisoning of our landscape,” says Leif Miller, director general of the German chapter of Bird Life International,” Ibid.

Widespread poisoning of ecosystems is the norm in modern day society. “Ours is a poisoned planet, … This explosion in chemical use and release has all happened so rapidly that most people are blissfully unaware of its true magnitude and extent, or of the dangers it now poses to us all as well as to future generations for centuries to come.” (Source: Julian Cribb, Surviving the 21st Century, Springer Nature, Switzerland, 2017, page 104)

“Most people are blissfully unaware” may be a blessing in disguise as the angst, dread, and uneasiness that knowledge of this horrendous crisis brings is the root cause of severe bouts of sleeplessness along with difficult spells of deep depression.

Australia's plummeting insect population

Insect population decline leaves Australian scientists scratching for solutions

ABC,

24 February, 2018

A global crash in insect populations has found its way to Australia, with entomologists across the country reporting lower than average numbers of wild insects.

University of Sydney entomologist Dr Cameron Webb said researchers around the world widely acknowledge that insect populations are in decline, but are at a loss to determine the cause.

"On one hand it might be the widespread use of insecticides, on the other hand it might be urbanisation and the fact that we're eliminating some of the plants where it's really critical that these insects complete their development," Dr Webb said.

"Add in to the mix climate change and sea level rise and it's incredibly difficult to predict exactly what it is."

'It's left me dumbfounded'

Entomologist and owner of the Australian Insect Farm, near Innisfail in far north Queensland, Jack Hasenpusch is usually able to collect swarms of wild insects at this time of year.

"I've been wondering for the last few years why some of the insects have been dropping off and put it down to lack of rainfall," Mr Hasenpusch said.

PHOTO: Jack Hasenpusch says he usually collects thousands of insects at this time of year, but this summer is particularly quiet. (ABC South East: Cassie Steeth)

"This year has really taken the cake with the lack of insects, it's left me dumbfounded, I can't figure out what's going on."

Mr Hasenpusch said entomologists he had spoken to from Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and even as far away as New Caledonia and Italy all had similar stories.

The Australian Butterfly Sanctuary in Kuranda, west of Cairns, has had difficulty breeding the far north's iconic Ulysses butterfly for more than two years.

"We've had [the problem] checked by scientists, the University of Queensland was involved, Biosecurity Queensland was involved but so far we haven't found anything unusual in the bodies [of caterpillars] that didn't survive," said breeding laboratory supervisor Tina Kupke.

PHOTO: There are concerns far north Queensland's iconic Ulysses butterfly species is also disappearing from the wild. (Supplied: Australian Butterfly Sanctuary)

"We've had some short successes but always failed in the second generation."

Ms Lupke said the problem was not confined to far north Queensland, or even Australia.

"Some of our pupae go overseas from some of our breeders here and they've all had the same problem," she said.

"And the Melbourne Zoo has been trying for quite a while with the same problems."

Limited lifecycle prefaces population plummet

Dr Webb, who primarily researches mosquitoes, said numbers were also in decline across New South Wales this year, which was indicative of the situation in other insect populations.

"We've had a really strange summer; it's been very dry, sometimes it's been brutally hot but sometimes it's been cooler than average," he said.

PHOTO: Entomologist Dr Cameron Webb says dry conditions can affect the lifecycle of many insects, which in turn affects entire populations. (ABC: Nicola Gage)

"Mosquito populations, much like a lot of other insects, rely on the combination of water, humidity and temperature to complete their lifecycle.

"When you mix around any one of those three components you can really change the local population dynamics."

According to Dr Webb, when conditions are less than ideal the lifespan of mosquitoes and other insects plummets, thus reducing the sustainability of the entire population.

"If you're used to living for about three weeks when it's nice and warm and humid, and then you're only living for a week or so because it's really hot and dry then you don't have to chance to lay as many eggs, or do as much mating," he said.

"Those things have a knock on effect and it means the overall populations can often be much lower."

Important to listen to anecdotal evidence

At this stage, reports of insect population declines in Australia are only anecdotal.

And, without formal scientific research into the phenomena, Dr Webb said it was difficult to make accurate predictions or assessments about insect numbers.

PHOTO: Dr Webb says corroborated anecdotal evidence from field researchers is often a sign that more formal research is required. (Supplied: Stuart Pettigrew)

On the other hand, he said, it is important to listen to the entomologists, ecologists and researchers who are in the field on a regular basis.

"You get a feel for what the general insect populations are like when you're doing a lot of field work," he said.

"I don't study cicadas, but I know what cicada numbers are like from year to year because I'm out and about in my local wetlands.

"When experts are relaying this kind of information it is something that we need to turn our mind to and think about what could be going on, and more importantly how do we work out if this is actually happening and what we do about it."

Australia and NZ to be test sites for GM insect trials

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND TO BE TEST SITES FOR GM INSECT TRIALS COURTESY OF DARPA!

https://envirowatchrangitikei.wordpress.com/2017/12/24/australia-and-new-zealand-to-be-test-sites-for-gm-insect-trials-courtesy-of-darpa/

Sent to me by Warren Woodward via emfacts.com

In order to make sense of the title of this posting read down to where it is stated where the proposed test sits for this GM technology will be. No sites in the US obviously.

After all, if there are any unexpected consequences of releasing GM altered insects in the environment better do it well away from America – and there’s lots of water between America and the Antipodes.

But don’t worry, they are also preparing a PR package aimed to “create government and community acceptance”. The main funder of gene drive technology is the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). With virtually unlimited funding imagine what the folks at DARPA can come up with. For the betterment of humanity, as Bill Gates would like us to believe, or for America’s military/corporate complex with global dominance as the real goal?

Perhaps this will not be such an easy sell in Australia because virtually all Australians know of the ongoing tragedy of the introduction of cane toads, introduced to Australia from Hawaii in 1935 by the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations as an amazing new technique to control the native grey-backed cane beetle. It didn’t work and now the toad is slowly invading much of Northern Australia with great destruction of native species.

The coming gene drive PR spin by “Emerging Ag” will claim benefits such as controlling mosquito diseases but other not mentioned “benefits” will be to try to develop a Monsanto pesticide resistant bee which will be used to pollinate crops sprayed with the chemicals without dying. After the GM bee has done its job, it’s programmed “termator gene’ will ensure all the GM bees die without leaving offspring, so each year farmers have to purchase a new batch of GM bees if they want to have pollinating dependent crop. Such a development would go a long way to assure global US military and corporate dominance over the world’s food resources.

The logic being why remove a profitable chemical which happens to be killing bees and other pollinating insects when you can change nature itself, at huge profit but with an unknown long-term cost to humanity. (Keep scrolling)

 

Also see: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/are-pesticides-to-blame-for-the-massive-bee-die-off

https://www.march-against-monsanto.com/epa-finally-admits-what-has-been-killing-bees-for-decades/

The insect apocalyse

"If we’re not willing to do that to save ourselves, we’re not going to do it for the beetles, mosquitoes, moths, or anything that feeds on them. Not even for the bees."

In the early 1900s, Iowa’s prairies were home to three hundred of species of plants, another 300 species of birds, tens of species of mammals, and uncounted hundreds upon hundreds of insect species. Fast forward to late summer 2012, when the air should have been buzzing with bugs, and you’d find rather few. One survey of an Iowan cornfield turned up exactly six creatures we might call bugs. (Not simply six species – six individual bugs.) Two grasshoppers, an ant, a red mite, and a cobweb spider eating a crane fly. Otherwise, silence.

People Finally Noticing Insect Collapse

Legal Reader.com,

9 November, 2017

There’s been anecdotal evidence creeping up on us for several years now. Drives out in the country or long freeway trips no longer covered the car with smashed insect guts. No more moths in the headlight beams. Of course, you have to be “of a certain age” to remember a time before the New Normal. Otherwise, the insect collapse would be invisible. If you never knew the experience of having to wash your windshield to get the bugs off every time you stopped for gas, you could be excused for not missing them. Even the gas stations, more often than not, seem to have empty reservoirs and missing squeegees these days.

As the bugs have disappeared, they have been replaced, ever so slightly, with calls of alarm. Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, published in 1962, inspired the modern environmental movement and eventually resulted in a phase-out the use of DDT as a mosquito insecticide. It wasn’t quite enough. Some folks remember the bugs declining as far back as the 1970s, but it really ramped up in the last couple decades. Timelines vary around the world. Insect traps set up in southern England didn’t register a serious insect collapse until about 2002, but in southern Scotland, insect counts declined by two-thirds in the thirty years before those in England.

In the early 1900s, Iowa’s prairies were home to three hundred of species of plants, another 300 species of birds, tens of species of mammals, and uncounted hundreds upon hundreds of insect species. Fast forward to late summer 2012, when the air should have been buzzing with bugs, and you’d find rather few. One survey of an Iowan cornfield turned up exactly six creatures we might call bugs. (Not simply six species – six individual bugs.) Two grasshoppers, an ant, a red mite, and a cobweb spider eating a crane fly. Otherwise, silence.

Finally, however, the insect collapse is garnering some media attention. A well-documented German study, recently released in the journal PLOS One, revealed something more valuable than anecdotal evidence or informal surveys: actual numbers over time. In the last 27 years, the flying insect biomass measured in protected German nature reserves declined an average of 76%, with an 82% drop during the midsummer season, when insect populations should be thriving. Another study found that Germany experienced a 15% drop in its bird population over the last decade. Clearly, an insect collapse also affects the birds who feed on them.

New Evidence Confirms a 76 Percent Decline in Insects, posted by United News International

Other studies around the world have produced similar findings. Scientists from Munich and Frankfort found that some moth and butterfly species fell from 117 in 1840 to 71 in 2013. A 2014 study found that invertebrate populations were in decline worldwide. Most folks are aware of the trouble faced by bee colonies; bees and butterflies are charismatic and beloved enough to garner public awareness.

However, does any of this matter? Can’t we just get by with a handful of major edible species (cows, chickens, pigs, corn, wheat, potatoes, and some tomatoes for ketchup)? Do we even need bugs anyway?

Actually, we do. Not only do insects form the base of the food chain for larger, cuter wildlife, they also pollinate plants that feed us, help digest waste matter and turn it back into soil, and perform numerous other ecosystem services. Plunging populations of insect predators mean that isolated outbreaks of destructive insects will be harder to control. An insect collapse is also the canary in our coal mine – an indicator that sooner or later, we’re in for trouble of our own. Further, and this may be the hardest to accept, not everything in nature is about us.

So what can we do about this? One action people can take on their own is to create more insect habitat in their own backyards. The National Wildlife Federation developed a program to help people support insects and wildlife by planting more nectar-bearing flowers, creating shelter, and providing water.

Another option is to buy pastured beef instead of meat from CAFOs. Pollinating insects, including bees, can thrive in pastures grazed by cattle. These rangelands provide hollow-stemmed grasses for insects to nest in, successively blooming flowers for them to sip from, and undisturbed places to hang out, while helping build soil, sequester carbon, and creating habitat for birds. Taking the cattle out of the pasture and turning it into a cornfield doesn’t help.

Most of all, though, this is a giant problem and likely requires systemic solutions. Climate change and industrial agriculture doubtlessly play a part, but the reasons for the insect collapse aren’t entirely known. However, if modern life and industrial culture are the reasons for the decline, it would take a massive overhaul of life as we know it to bring the bugs back. And if we’re not willing to do that to save ourselves, we’re not going to do it for the beetles, mosquitoes, moths, or anything that feeds on them. Not even for the bees.

Related: Humans Can Help the Environment

Sources:

More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

Insects Are In Serious Trouble

Insect ‘Armageddon’: 5 Crucial Questions Answered

Where have all the insects gone?

A giant insect ecosystem is collapsing due to humans. It’s a catastrophe

Warning of ‘ecological Armageddon’ after dramatic plunge in insect numbers

‘Decimated’: Germany’s birds disappear as insect abundance plummets 76%

What’s Causing the Sharp Decline in Insects, and Why It Matters

Cornstalks Everywhere But Nothing Else, Not Even A Bee

A Way to Save America’s Bees: Buy Free-Range Beef

Texas Ranches Manage Cattle to Improve Habitat and Watershed Health

Create a Wildlife Habitat