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75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

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Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#331

Post by mholmes680 »

christophilus wrote: post #157
avip wrote: post #3

Yes. This is a case of hard data confirming what we already know. As in - few types of butterflies I used to like, and see yearly as a kid - are gone. I see them now once in 5 years, if lucky. I bring my kids to look because it's a first time for them. On the other hand, some types of beetles, ants, flies, mosquitoes, even wasps - are just new. They were not here 20-30 years ago. Now, what are the consequences of all…

This year, I left a portion of my lawn unmowed. I seeded it with a $10 bag of wildflower seeds. It's given me 4 months of beautiful flowers, loads of polinators, many butterflies, and it's given me less yard to mow. I now think that lawns of neatly trimmed grass are about as dumb as it gets.

I highly recommend planting some milkweed in that area. I've done just about the same as you, although the previous owner had planted the milkweed. The monarch butterflies rely on it, and they're currently in decline.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#332

Post by giardini »

Dove wrote: post #91
carbonmachine wrote: post #75

Being an earth dwelling human, this seems pretty bad. Aside from buying ammo or survival rations, what's something proactive that I can do? Is there an organization that is trying to rid the world of pesticides (assuming that's the cause)? If I opt to call my representatives, what am I calling in support of/against? Over the last year, reading the news had made me more passive and worried. I want to dedicate a slice…

Try to help figure out why it's happening. Uninformed activism is unhelpful, and can cause people to ignore informed activism.

It's happening b/c

- so many people don't understand statistics or science and

- some beekeepers in Germany wrote a paper. Here's one of the original papers: https://www.farmlandbirds.net/sites/default/files/Orbrioch%2...

The 75% decline number appears to be from two data points from a 220-acre plot.

- People panic, post it here and everywhere else, presuming that:

- proper scientific methodology was used and

- what applies to a 220-acre plot in the German hinterlands must apply to the whole world.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#333

Post by lightbyte »

DoodleBuggy wrote: post #145
jpm_sd wrote: post #24

This is pretty alarming and suggests that soaking agricultural land in insecticides might be having some far-reaching side effects.

Well, the intention of insecticides is to kill insects. All insects. It's working, but perhaps a little too well?

The intention of insecticides is to kill the insects that prey on specific crops, not to kill every single insect there is. It's working better than they thought, causing it to have unintended consequences.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#334

Post by gilbetron »

The company I work for has a big portion of it's land devoted to nature meadow, and it is amazing how much more insects you see and hear, and I find it 9000x prettier than grass. We're letting most of our lawn at home get overtaken by a clover-like plant called Germander. People call it "lawn cancer", but I like it better than grass. More life in it, it gets pretty purple flowers in the spring, and it is hardy as hell.

My wife hates spiders in the house, but I love them - they take care of all the other critters I hate more, and they are interesting little buggers, especially the jumping spiders and wolf spiders.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#335

Post by batushka »

titzer wrote: post #279

It's not only a consequence of direct habitat destruction, but also the use of pesticides. According to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2946087/ , more than a billion pounds of pesticides are used on lawns in the US every year. There is little regulation there. All of those pesticides are designed to kill bugs . Why are we now surprised that bugs are disappearing? We are sterilizing the planet. According…

Some EU countries banned agro chemicals for general public. Now it's only for license bearers - farmers mostly.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#336

Post by dsfyu404ed »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #177
sitkack wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not unlike if one drives up the cost of rent in a city so high that the people who make it function, can't afford to live there and leave. Dogs don't get walked, burritos unmade and drinks unstiffened. Jane Jacobs outlined all of this decades ago.

And criminals don't get caught and fires don't get put out. SF is not quite there yet, but already most emergency responders live outside the city. (Article is from 2011. I'm sure the situation is worse today.) http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Most-S-F-firefighters-...

You reap what you sow.

If you DGAF about planning and resource management and just do the same thing year after year your fields will soon be useless for growing that one thing you've specialized in and it will suck to be you but none of your neighbors will feel sorry for you because they all saw it coming from years off.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#337

Post by Bartweiss »

timthelion wrote: post #274
djsumdog wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a lot of American logging has pushed to the Pacific Northwest, where it's very wet, doesn't get very hot/cold and new growth is very fast. I was talking to someone in Portland out in the middle of nowhere who said, "Almost everything you see is new growth; less than 60 years old. It grows that fast." The Singapore City gallery had a display where they talked about growing plants sustainability for paper…

It may grow fast, bug the pacific north west once was covered with HUGE trees. Those trees may seem normal, but they are small in comparison to how things "normally" looked before Europeans. https://www.google.cz/search?q=spruce+giants+olympic&source=...

Yep - PNW forestry is a fairly reasonable solution, at least in the sense that it's sustainable as-is. But it's far from a natural condition for that area.

The comparison between relatively preserved parks and National Forests (e.g. Willamette) and the rest of the states forests is truly jarring.

For that matter, the same pattern can be seen across the country. Much of Pennsylvania is densely forested, but the entire state has only a few thousand scattered acres of old-growth woods.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#338

Post by dsfyu404ed »

sulam wrote: post #192
downer71 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren’t there local ordinances in some jurisdictions, requiring an orderly yard about the house? For sure, in many places there are laws regulating tree count and what you can and can’t chop down. I swear I’ve heard of fines for unmowed lawns too.

HOAs, township laws, etc — it is somewhat common in the US to be unable to do anything but grow grass in your front yard. We took advantage of the CA drought and tore out all our grass in front and replaced it with drought tolerant natives. It looks better and the kids didn’t play there anyway. And now we have monarchs.

>somewhat common in the US in the parts of the US that are over-represented on HN

FTFY.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#339

Post by emiliobumachar »

devmunchies wrote: post #174
t420mom wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Factory-farmed meat is bad for humans and bad for the environment, true, but any industrial-scale monoculture crop has huge negative impacts, and that includes vegetables too. Better to avoid monocultures by buying organic/biodynamic, shopping at farmers' markets, CSA, growing your own food, etc. Eat less processed and make more from scratch. Better health, better for the environment, and you can still enjoy meat :)

True, but it doesn't scale. Good luck if you live in a metro area.

If there was demand for it, every other apartment building rooftop could include a greenhouse.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#340

Post by gaius »

freeflight wrote: post #46
avip wrote: post #3

Yes. This is a case of hard data confirming what we already know. As in - few types of butterflies I used to like, and see yearly as a kid - are gone. I see them now once in 5 years, if lucky. I bring my kids to look because it's a first time for them. On the other hand, some types of beetles, ants, flies, mosquitoes, even wasps - are just new. They were not here 20-30 years ago. Now, what are the consequences of all…

> On the other hand, some types of beetles, ants, flies, mosquitoes, even wasps - are just new. Afaik most of these are usually invasives species, displacing local populations, which is happening in the weirdest ways and places. In Germany, our local ladybug species are on the verge of going extinct because an imported Asian ladybug species emits some kind of spores killing them, and the Asian ones generally being st…

Eastern grey squirrels, brought to the European mainland from the UK

Don't blame us, they are an invasive species here too. Proper British squirrels are red.

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