More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass (2017)

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809

by doener • 3 years ago

217 121 3 years ago

journals.plos.org

Can someone here point me towards the most current literature/sources on this topic? I’ve seen Beneckes EU-parliament talk and found the numbers presented there (probably the same ones you can see in the paper) very concerning.

What does figure 4 look like in 2023? Where can I subscribe to stay up to date? What can companies in the ML/analytics space do to help?

debacle• 3 years ago

What can companies in the ML/analytics space do to help?

...nothing?

Contrary to very wishful thinking, technology is not the tool to solve all problems, and it will never be a replacement for civic engagement.

samstave2• 3 years ago

Well, one could hack Monsanto and find all the secret emails which talk about how bad glyphosate is for the actual environment-eco-system that used to be in balance with insects.

FredPret• 3 years ago

Technology != Comp Sci. We are a technological species in that we evolved with fire and clothing, and after tool use.

For any mess we find ourselves in, the solution - if there is one - will involve tech and engineering.

jitlle• 3 years ago

I think that comment was intended as a parody of what a absurdly stereotypical HN user might write.

kuhewa6• 3 years ago

We don't even yet have the data to describe temporal trends in insect diversity and abundance rigorously and at scale, let alone attribute drivers. There is definitely scope for ML to assist in producing/validating/collating data.

Civic engagement is going to be more effective with science behind it, otherwise it is up against campaign donors and lobbyists who can accurately point out there isn't enough data to demonstrate insecticides have caused a crash in insect populations, and to act as if they have would be threatening rural economies and food security without cause.

adrianN3• 3 years ago

ML companies could help by developing cheap methods to reduce the use of pesticides.

tokai• 3 years ago

Check out papers that cites this one.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1377111639896250698...

lamontcg• 3 years ago

What can companies in the ML/analytics space do to help?

plaster the internet with chatbots doing fake engagement in order to swing political bias the other direction. the other side of the argument is already doing it.

frontierkodiak• 3 years ago

We don’t have the data to make much more than directional claims re: macro trends in insect biodiversity. Ecological monitoring is tedious and labor-intensive; insects are simply too minute, too diverse, and too numerous to be surveilled at scale. Scale is necessary to make multi-decadal claims across millions of taxa; this is probably why some of the most rigorous studies^1 have produced findings that complicate the idea of an insect armageddon.

I’m working on a tool to make insect (focused esp. on pollinators) monitoring 10,000x cheaper. We do not currently understand the scale of insect declines, much less are we able to design targeted interventions. In the past decades, mammalian and avian declines were largely reversed, mostly thanks to ambitious multiyear monitoring efforts that enabled limited conservation resources to be allocated efficiently.

We should replicate this model with insects. I plan to make this possible by radically reducing the cost of data.

I’ve been toying with this idea for a few years, but I finally made the leap to building my startup^2 full-time a few months back (coming from entomology/ecology). Hoping for an alpha release & demo study this summer.

I'm happy to chat with anyone interested. Especially interested to meet those working and funding in this space.

1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1269-4 2. https://polli.ai Note: This site is austere (I blame CUDA troubles for stealing my time this month). Expect something more representative by April.

Xeoncross• 3 years ago

The way many cities, farms, processing plants, resorts, houses, etc... spray regularly, I think some people are targeting 100% decline in flying insect biomass. I hope they don't get their wish.

mistrial93• 3 years ago

from past discussions here, it appears to be a) real, and b) due mainly to 24 hours lighting and destruction of common ground where reproduction happens

I predict huge numbers, but of far fewer species in a hundred years..

Laaas• 3 years ago

Far fewer _current_ species, and some new species.

CydeWeys• 3 years ago

You think it's mainly those factors and not simply greater use of insecticides?

mistrial93• 3 years ago

yeah - all manner of agricultural and urban poisons .. without complicating it I went with the simple "destruction of common ground"

Silent Spring is here

davidkuennen• 3 years ago

Having lived in the countryside in Germany my whole life (34 years), I noticed a dramatic decline of insects.

When I was a child, there were so many butterflies, bees and more in the summer. Today I barely see them anymore.

everydayentropy• 3 years ago

Yup! I always thought it was me staying inside more as I got older, but I rarely see butterflies and bumble bees anymore.

This terrifies me more than climate alarmism.

smackeyacky• 3 years ago

You don't think it might be related?

m463• 3 years ago

what got me is that over the past 10 or more years, I've continually seen dead bees on the ground.

and I think... what a small creature to *notice* on the ground. How many dead bees escape my notice? there must be a LOT.

Jensson• 3 years ago

Remember getting so many mosquito bites, but then after growing up you almost never see mosquitos any more in the same location. Was many years since I last saw one now.

mgraupner2• 3 years ago

Fellow German here. I go out for mountain biking and gravel rides a lot. Every time I pass agriculture fields in summer, there is no "noise" anymore, it's totally quiet. No birds, no insects, nothing, it almost seems dead. As soon as I come to places where nature can be itself, there is an abundance of sounds, nature is thriving. Unfortunately the former prevails the latter several times.

I guess I don't need any studies of WHAT is killing these insects...

hermitcrab4• 3 years ago

If you have a garden you can let a little bit of it go wild. One garden isn't much, but millions of gardens with wild patches can make a difference.

looping__lui• 3 years ago

+1 to that. Car windshields are clean today after a long ride on the autobahn.

I have apple trees in my garden and if you dont physically shield the apples, wasps and other insects will just eat them up in no time. Nearby there are enormous apple tree fields. Nothing touches their apples. I wonder why.

samstave2• 3 years ago

This is interesting to me ; I am a regular cyclist and I commented recently on the fact that when I was a kid, there were always 'clouds' of gnats in the evenings that typically swarmed around and you would bike through them...

I havent encountered a swarm of little gnat in a very long time.

However, I blame this on glyphosate which decimated the insect environments.

The other thing, in the early 1980s in Lake Tahoe, there was a grove of trees near my elementary school where the Monarch Butterflies would congregate and an entire pine tree would be completely blanketed in them - havent seen that in decades.

Milkweed is their only food and egg-laying spot (on the underside of the leaves) - but milkweed has been eradicated with glyphosate and thus no more Monarchs.

logi2mus• 3 years ago

When I was young the farmers made hay, no it is only Silage. So any moth which was attached to hay is now dead.

melling• 3 years ago

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

Climate change, plastics, antibiotic resistance, huge budget deficits, etc. We create all sorts of problems in society. We can’t seem to connect the dots…

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vinyl-chloride-ohio-train-derai...

Our inflation problem was avoidable too but everyone wanted cheap money for way too long.

DesiLurker2• 3 years ago

Right, As I often say, tragedy of commons will turn out to be our great filter. Not just at individual level but every level up including city, state & nations. It works great for when the problems faced are aligned with individual short term best interests not so well when collective action is needed.

toomuchtodo• 3 years ago

It’s not just tragedy of the commons, it’s also a lack of collective will to not keep borrowing from the future and kicking the can. Debt, the biome, economic systems depending on never ending growth and an ever growing population pyramid. There is no incentive to think long term and preserve for tomorrow.

This will catch up to us eventually, and ignorance will be plead.

mistrial93• 3 years ago

regulated and science-based Forestry seems to have destroyed thousands of years of forest growth in less than a hundred years of English command, here in California. Nothing about it was 'commons' .. Secondly, the largest polluter of the Pacific Ocean has been the US Navy, on shore and off.. also fully 'not commons'

Let's ignore the politics and look with a science lense at what is really going on?

ck2• 3 years ago

It's simply about profit with cutting any corners for more.

It's one thing when a single person does it, entirely something else when millionaires and billionaires do it at a corporate level.

Cruise Ships are burning bunker fuel to this day, dumping tons of toxic mess into the oceans and atmosphere.

Fracking burn off has been going on for over two decades (around for a century but didn't take off until 20 years ago)

Super dooper nasty stuff being dumped into all the freshwater in the USA and around the world.

People see climate change as linear but just like pollution buildup, it's exponential.

Isn't the "point of no return" projected around 2040? What if it's really 2030 but even if 2040, what exactly is going to change in that time?

jcq3• 3 years ago

So what? Old species die and new species born. Its just nature...

fredoliveira• 3 years ago

Tell me you don't understand how ecosystems collapse without telling me you don't know how ecosystems collapse.

csdvrx• 3 years ago

IDK, if it turns out it's not due to insecticides, I think that's a valid point.

The world is always changing. I may be philosophically wrong to want to lock it in its present state.

stephc_int132• 3 years ago

There are sampling methodology issues with this type of studies.

The main conclusion is that insecticide chemicals used for agriculture are pretty effective at killing insects (especially Neonicotinoid but probably also other classes).

A more rigorous sampling methodology would produce a different picture, with huge differences depending on the distance from highly cultivated areas.

This is not apocalypse, this is actionable, invertebrates species populations can rebound at a surprising speed in less poisonous ecosystem.

Politics should act to ban some classes of insecticides.

300bps• 3 years ago

Politics should act to ban some classes of insecticides.

And people need to be educated so they don’t hire pesticide companies to bomb their entire yard every year with insecticide because they want fewer mosquitos and other bugs outside.

huuhee32• 3 years ago

This. I can't understand people who want their plot of land to be without natural life. Might as well sell the house and move to a flat instead.

zbrozek• 3 years ago

Dunno. I'm one of the people who don't want mosquitos, though I don't care about bugs which don't suck my blood. I have a fan-powered mosquito trap which seems to work well enough. No chemistry.

giantg27• 3 years ago

This is the biggest factor I've personally seen.

My house and neighbor don't spray. I chave a corn field behind me, which I think is BT because I don't see them spray. We have plenty of bumble bees, beetles, and other insects. Although I will say there are fewer butterflies than I remeber as a kid.

My in-laws live in a development where they and almost everyone else sprays. There are very few insects. Still plenty of annoying yellow jackets though.

dcchambers• 3 years ago

Politics should act to ban some classes of insecticides.

My fear (in the US anyway) is that this will never happen because of one simple reason: Iowa Corn Farmers.

Presidential elections in the US start and end for many candidates in one state. Iowa. That's where the first primary election is held.

And the key to winning Iowa is the make the corn lobby and corn farmers happy.

njarboe2• 3 years ago

The Democrats have voted to change the first primaries (I know Iowa has a caucus) to North Carolina. That should change things a bit.

giantg27• 3 years ago

"Presidential elections in the US start and end for many candidates in one state."

Eh, this isn't the biggest issue. If it was, we would have had bills for this that were vetoed. There has to also be support for banning this in the legislature, which depends on many other states.

lasc4r2• 3 years ago

Corn doesn't get much insecticide, herbicide yes.

testfoobar4• 3 years ago

Iowa has been replaced by South Carolina. But New Hampshire law has introduced a race condition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire_presidential_pri... "New Hampshire state law[6] stipulates that the presidential primary shall be on the second Tuesday in March (the date when town meetings and non-partisan municipal elections are traditionally held), but that the Secretary of State must, if necessary, change the date to ensure that the New Hampshire primary will take place at least seven days before any "similar election" in any other state. The Iowa caucuses are not considered to be a similar election. In recent election cycles, the New Hampshire primary has taken place the week after the Iowa caucus."

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/democrats-vote-to-chan... "PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Democratic Party on Saturday approved the reordering of its 2024 presidential primary, replacing Iowa with South Carolina in the leadoff spot as part of a major shake-up meant to empower Black and other minority voters critical to its base of support."

myshpa4• 3 years ago

A third of that corn is used for animal agriculture as feed, a third for production of ethanol (environmentally worse than gas anyway), and just one third is for human consumption [0].

We could easily eliminate 2/3 of that crop (by switching to electric and plant based) and 2/3 of associated pesticides/herbicides as well.

[0] https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2019/07/29/corn-americas-lar...

fnordpiglet2• 3 years ago

It feels like this is also where natural selection and evolution kick in. Surely insects will evolve resistance to insecticides given their ubiquity, rapid life cycle, and prodigious ability to reproduce?

londons_explore• 3 years ago

There are always some chemicals that evolving resistance to is tricky.

Humans are particularly poor at lava resistance... Despite groups of humans having had access to lava for millions of years.

kuhewa6• 3 years ago

Its a red queen situation though because the agricultural industry is constantly coming up with ways to get around resistance when it does appear

chucklenorris• 3 years ago

What's the alternative? The public is much more afraid about GMO crops than dying insects and the farmers clearly don't want to be the losers in this situation.

stephc_int132• 3 years ago

Yeah, this is unfortunate. Same story with Nuclear power.

kornhole2• 3 years ago

Birds are the only insect control I use in my garden. I am not growing miles of corn or another monoculture. It is a hard sell to some farmers to diversify their fields and plant trees for the birds to roost.

BMc20202• 3 years ago

“There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen.” --Lenin

The crash will always seem years away right up until the moment it is here.

PM_me_your_math• 3 years ago

Lenin is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. You're quoting someone who has a body count higher than that of Adolf Hitler.

BMc20202• 3 years ago

But he did have some insight into the nature of revolutions, which is the context in this case.

zabzonk• 3 years ago

annecdata: my very nice cleaning lady saw a bumble bee on her allotment yesterday, and told me about it. 10 years ago it would not be worth mentioning - they all come out in early spring.

this is in lincoln, uk

1attice• 3 years ago

Hear me out: sure, we denuded the planet of life, but we're ushering new life into being with GPT-N

If there are future generations, the priorities of this era will be inscrutable

schnebbau• 3 years ago

At some point in the future the consequences of our actions are going to start emerging, and shit is going to get real for society.

Where in the world would be a good place to be living when this happens? Probably a relatively small, relatively undeveloped island in the pacific right? (if it isn't underwater by that point)

huuhee32• 3 years ago

Somewhere with lots of natural resources, not too hot and few people. Alaska perhaps? Siberia would work if the local government wasn't so crazy.

jamiek88• 3 years ago

Alaska in the summer is the one place where there mostly definitely isn’t a shortage of flying insects.

I’d never seen anything like it.

adrianN3• 3 years ago

A place were everyone wants to live is a bad place to live because people kill other people to take their land.

potsandpans• 3 years ago

my escapist fantasy exists deep in the sticks of northern vermont / maine. not too many people, necessary cold seasons, relatively decent hardiness zones.

pixelfarmer• 3 years ago

Some point in the future? We are in the midst of a massive species extinction event already. The problem with all that: The dependencies in the biosphere are complex graphs and we humans are eradicating part of that, unraveling everything connected to that. Guess who is part of that big graph? Humans. For beings which declare themselves as being "intelligent" this can only be described as exceptionally stupid.

darth_avocado• 3 years ago

It’s fertilizers but it’s also declining biodiversity. We’re razing down natural habitats and covering it up with other things. When you dig up the prairies and build McMansions with decorative grass at best, turf or concrete at worst, all the native insects go to die, and so does the rest of the food chain.

laen• 3 years ago

I can remember a decade ago having to clean my car’s windshield each time I filled up at the gas station. Now-a-days in both the US and Germany I find it a rarity - my wipers can generally get the one or two splats. You’ll notice a bit more on the country roads vs interstate/autobahn but such an alarming difference overall.

rqtwteye• 3 years ago

That’s very true.

joss82• 3 years ago

Is it the same car, though?

For efficiency, newer cars have become more profiled and glide through the air where older cars were more boxy.

mikestew• 3 years ago

As you’ll see in a moment, the question/assertion has come up before:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31947758

hermitcrab4• 3 years ago

I had a chuckle a few days ago in my local bookshop when I saw next to each other books on: -the insect apocalypse -how to eat insects

b3nji• 3 years ago

Now what are the elites going to get is to eat?!

hermitcrab4• 3 years ago

Aside: I fairly recently got into photographing bugs with a macro lens and flash. It opens up a whole new world that you can't normally see with the naked eye. Also you can do it in your garden or local park, no need to fly to the Serengeti. Insects (and arachnids) are amazing.

pleb_nz• 3 years ago

Flying somewhere is only adding to the environmental issues anyway....

dustymcp• 3 years ago

Anecdote time, i drove home last summer to my parents they live in the middle of nowhere with farmland all around and i remember distinctly when i was a kid how many bugs that would be squashed, coming around now there is very little compared..

I dont know much about pesticides but that seems like a slippery slope.

pyinstallwoes• 3 years ago

Perhaps loss of insects is an indicator we got absorbed into a simulation.

Just kidding.

pvaldes• 3 years ago

To start, In Germany

Alternative universe title: After several decades German Insects learned not to keep falling on Malaise traps, or local birds learned how to ravage the traps and take profit of it

Another alternative universe title title: After taxonomists vanished insect biomass is flying under the radar and being severely underestimated

kornhole2• 3 years ago

We have chemical warfare treaties between humans. Why not extend it to other species?

phendrenad2• 3 years ago

Am I allowed to say that the number of bugs I see in 2023 is roughly the same as I saw when I was young, or will I get downvoted for disagreeing with the bug hive?

More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass (2017)

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