11–20 of 119 posts
Monocultures are definitely in need of becoming at least somewhat diversified because besides the birds, right now we're still at a point where a stupid plant virus or fungus can kill millions because it can wipe out half of the world's wheat or rice production.
GMO anyone?
The GMO plant itself isn't what kills the insects which than poison the birds.. it's the poison that's sprayed on the plants.
GMO anyone?
Somehow I don’t see domesticated plants killing off insects. Monocultures, maybe. Why not pesticides?
The original comment looks shallow at first, but GMOs often contain pesticides inside the seed/grain because the companies designing them don't know how to control it. That could potentially harm birds in the long run, and definitely harms insects.
GMO anyone?
The purpose of many GMO plants is to be more resilient against pesticides. The GMO plant itself isn't what kills the insects which than poison the birds.. it's the poison that's sprayed on the plants.
Seed coating with a neonicotinoid insecticide negatively affects wild bees
https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v521/n7550/full/nature14420.htmlEarlier quoted context omitted.
The purpose of many GMO plants is to be more resilient against pesticides. The GMO plant itself isn't what kills the insects which than poison the birds.. it's the poison that's sprayed on the plants.
> The GMO plant itself isn't what kills the insects https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef130
Bt Delta Endotoxin
an interesting side note, endotoxin test have relied on availability of horseshoe crab blood:
The standard assay for detecting presence of endotoxin is
the Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL) assay, utilizing blood
from the Horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus).[44] Very low
levels of LPS can cause coagulation of the limulus lysate
due to a powerful amplification through an enzymatic
cascade. However, due to the dwindling population of
horseshoe crabs, and the fact that there are factors that
interfere with the LAL assay, efforts have been made to
develop alternative assays, with the most promising ones
being ELISA tests using a recombinant version of a protein
in the LAL assay, Factor C.[Possible contributing cause is a class of insecticides called neonicotinoids. These are not sprayed, but rather coated on seeds, arguably even more alarming. Seed coating with a neonicotinoid insecticide negatively affects wild bees https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v521/n7550/full/nature14420.html
I don't know of any studies to prove it is true, but I suspect that the US Midwest (in particular) has had a similar decline. Anecdotally I can say that there are certainly far fewer insects here than there were in the 60s and 70s when I was growing up, and also that there seem to be far fewer birds. I wonder if we'll stop dumping this stuff into the environment before it's too late. It would require a whole new way…
EDIT: Here's a reference [1]. Note that it specifically calls out species in general decline: the Northern Bobwhite, American Kestrel, and the Loggerhead Shrike.
[1] http://www.audubon.org/news/the-118th-annual-audubon-christm...