Bugs Matter: counting insect ‘splats’ on vehicle number plates [pdf]

https://cdn.buglife.org.uk/2022/05/Bugs-Matter-2021-National-Report.pdf

by Kaibeezy • 4 years ago

106 52 4 years ago

cdn.buglife.org.uk

Gys• 4 years ago

A 26 page research report with a clear conclusion:

The results show that the number of insects sampled on vehicle number plates in the UK decreased by 58.5% between 2004 and 2021, and that these differences were statistically significant. A comparison of the 2004 national data with the 2019 data from Kent showed a 53.7% decrease. The greatest decreases in splat rate between 2004 and 2021 occurred in England (65%) whilst journeys in Scotland recorded a comparably smaller decrease (27.9%), with intermediate decreases in Wales (55%).

qiskit• 4 years ago

It could be evolution - insects with traits that kept them from cars were selected for. Perhaps changes to the license plates? Changes in the design of cars? Or a general decline of insect population?

yCombLinks• 4 years ago

Yes, it could be that, but anecdotally I see significantly less bugs on cars during summers than during my childhood. The grill, windshield, etc would have dozens of lovebugs after a short drive on an early summer day. Now they're rare.

markburns2• 4 years ago

Completely anecdotal but I seem to remember flies banging their heads on windows a lot more when I was younger.

Now they seem to be able to navigate their way out with comparative ease. Open a door or window and waft them in the general direction and they seem to be able to escape.

I've been wondering for a few years if this was evolution.

yreg• 4 years ago

The more aerodynamic the car is the less splats there should be, as the bugs are more likely to be carried by the flow of air around the car, correct?

Still, there is no doubt that the insect population is in a massive decline.

mikestew• 4 years ago

I've worn the same brand and model of motorcycle helmet (Nolan flip-up) for probably 20 years. Granted, I'm sure Nolan has made some minor changes over the years, but the aerodynamics of my massive noggin haven't changed, and I clean far, far fewer bugs off my face shield than in years past. Just my imagination? No, I have records of when I buy Honda Spray Cleaner and Polish (the pro's choice for cleaning face shields), and I don't buy as much as I used to for the same miles ridden. And old post of mine from six months ago when the topic came up, and everyone's all like "cars are more aerodynamic than they used to be" (yeah, well, my head's not), basically saying the same thing:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29006969

titzer• 4 years ago

Reasonable questions to ask. But a fairly well-known German study based on traps that catch flying insects had a 75% reduction over 27 years:

[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Just anecdotally, I see almost no bugs swarming street lights anymore, and have personally experienced the windshield phenomenon on several road trips.

ISL• 4 years ago

If the (important/compelling/disturbing) science content wasn't enough, definitely open the article for terms like "Splatometer" and "Splats-per-mile".

Wistar4• 4 years ago

It used to be—80s and early 90s—that a couple hundred mile drive down the Oregon coast would need at least one or two stops for bug splat removal. I made that drive last July and there were perhaps two splats for the entire 400-mile round trip.

moron4hire• 4 years ago

I remember being at minor league baseball games in the 90s, waiting for dark to see fireworks after the game, and getting absolutely rained on by moths falling from getting cooked in the stadium lights. The cloud of moths would be so thick it would partially obscure the lights. The girls would scream and the boys would scoop up handfuls from the ground to throw at the girls.

... Not me. Other boys.

Anyway. I don't think the mosquitoes got the memo. I feel like I get more and more bites every year.

dvh• 4 years ago

'80s cars are not exactly known for their aerodynamics...

         _____
     ___/__|__\__
    [   \__|__/  ]
    '( )------( )=

Wistar4• 4 years ago

Last summer's trip was in a Mercedes GLK, not exactly the paragon of slipperiness.

Steltek• 4 years ago

The majority of US cars are huge SUVs and pickup trucks. I would dare say 80's cars are more aerodynamic simply by having a smaller cross section.

PheonixPharts2• 4 years ago

This is the classic "this is fine" response whenever someone posts this observation about declining insect populations and cleaning dead bugs off of cars.

However a tiny bit of investigation into this will lead you to realize that this hypothesis is false.

More than just being false, research has discovered that modern cars hit more insects than less aerodynamic cars [0]:

The research included vintage cars up to 70 years old to see if their less aerodynamic shape meant they killed more bugs, but it found that modern cars actually hit slightly more insects.

So, given what research has shown us, we should expect there to be more insects observed if it were the case that insect populations remained stable while cars became more aerodynamic.

0. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/car-spla...

ErikVandeWater• 4 years ago

Somewhat off topic - Did you draw that car yourself, or did you copy it from somewhere? It's great!

zevv• 4 years ago

I have been driving the exact car from this drawing for the last 25 years: Volvo 940, square as a brick.

In the 90s, it needed a weekly scrub to keep the headlights and plate visible.

I have literally not washed my car a single time over the last year. It has moss and pollen all over, but there are hardly any bug splats.

This frightens me _so_ very much.

narag• 4 years ago

There's this assumption, not explicit, but floating around this thread, that aerodynamics somehow makes splats more difficult.

I can't really refute it, but it doesn't ring true to me either.

Insects don't even touch the car before exploding, mind you.

gerdesj2• 4 years ago

The article's title specifically mentions "number plates". All cars in the UK are required to display number plates (license plates) at the front and back. They have a standard size. They are nearly all (99% or more) in the centre and are roughly the same height off the ground, depending on model.

My first Mark 1 Ford Fiesta from 198something had its plate at about the same place as the Honda S2000 I had in 200something and the Renault CLio I have now and the Ford Transit van I also drive.

The S2000 did the best doughnuts though. Rear wheel drive, variable valves, 13,500 RPM red line and quite a lot of welly.

brimble• 4 years ago

This was the case in the Midwest in our basically-the-same-shape-as-modern-cars 90s family cars. We'd use the windshield cleaner thing next to the gas pump nearly every time we stopped, when on road trips, and for good reason—there'd be a few large splatters and a bunch of smaller ones, every time. And that's if it wasn't particularly buggy out that day—there were some times we stopped for the windshield, not for gas.

I think I've done that like... four or five times, total, since the year 2000. And I think every time it was for a single big bug-splatter.

[EDIT] I also recall there being tens of times more large insects—butterflies, large moths, grasshoppers, katydids—around in general back in the late 80s and early 90s, even in the 'burbs, like they were just all over the place in the Spring and Summer, you'd walk through lawn-length grass at the school playground and tons of them would be all around you, hopping away or taking to the air, and now I have to try pretty hard to find even one... but surely that can't be right, can it? That'd be super noticeable by scientists who track that kind of thing. Right?

throwaway8943452• 4 years ago

I’ve been driving all over the midwest and my car is covered in splats after each trip. This seems really surprising to me.

choeger• 4 years ago

There might be a perception thing involved as well. Insects tend to emit sound in high frequencies and adults get worse in hearing those as they age. When I was in my early 20s, my mother once swore there were no crickets around while I was like "how can you not hear them? They're so loud...". Nowadays, I wonder were the crickets have gone...

calebegg• 4 years ago

stelonix• 4 years ago

Could this in any way be related to the increase of wifi, cellular or any other EM waves that got a huge boom since the early 2000s? I ask this as in, is there any research on how the EM waves we've been using the past 20-25 years interact with arthropoda in general?

jl6• 4 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations

There are a lot of very plausible explanations to work through before you have to consider something exotic like EM sensitivity.

malfist• 4 years ago

Probably going to regret asking this, but is there any evidence that EM waves interact negatively in anything in the animal kingdom? Outside of literally cooking something.

zamadatix• 4 years ago

For the "any other EM waves" portion sure, ionizing radiation damages in a very different way than heating something up. It's unrelated to things like Wi-Fi and celluar though and such non-ionizing radiation has not been found to have some other negative interaction.

Extremely high power extremely low frequency radiation can also cause electrical flow but it's not been found to be problematic in humans at least. I doubt anyone has done a study on extremely low frequency radiation for arthropods in the specific time frame specified by the GP but I also doubt this portion of the EM landscape has changed significantly enough compared to before that time frame to be a relevant explanation.

omosubi• 4 years ago

I must say, what an ingenious way to measure insect counts. It's clever ideas like these that I come to hacker news for.

fumblebee• 4 years ago

Ingenious. A similar method has been employed for monitoring species’ density using roadkill as a metric [1]

[1] https://www.ucf.edu/news/new-study-shows-impact-of-roadkill-...

um1• 4 years ago

I wonder if it is a matter of there simply being more cars on the road - population increase. i.e. fewer bug impact per car. Traffic? Can (higher) velocity have an effect? Off topic: same goes for “power density” in gas vs electric vehicles. What is power density in oxygen free environments like underwater or space?

Bugs Matter: counting insect ‘splats’ on vehicle number plates [pdf]

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