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Bug Earth

Insects Could Vanish Within a Century At Current Rate of Decline, Says Global Review (theguardian.com) 241

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The world's insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a "catastrophic collapse of nature's ecosystems," according to the first global scientific review. More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century. The planet is at the start of a sixth mass extinction in its history, with huge losses already reported in larger animals that are easier to study. But insects are by far the most varied and abundant animals, outweighing humanity by 17 times. They are "essential" for the proper functioning of all ecosystems, the researchers say, as food for other creatures, pollinators and recyclers of nutrients.

Insect population collapses have recently been reported in Germany and Puerto Rico, but the review strongly indicates the crisis is global. The researchers set out their conclusions in unusually forceful terms for a peer-reviewed scientific paper: "The [insect] trends confirm that the sixth major extinction event is profoundly impacting [on] life forms on our planet. The analysis, published in the journal Biological Conservation, says intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides. Urbanization and climate change are also significant factors.
"One of the biggest impacts of insect loss is on the many birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that eat insects," the study says, noting a recent study in Puerto Rico where there was a 98% fall in ground insects over 35 years. Butterflies and moths are among the worst hit.
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Insects Could Vanish Within a Century At Current Rate of Decline, Says Global Review

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  • Fortunately (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11, 2019 @12:24AM (#58102142)

    By the time this whips back around to fuck humanity, the denialist will be spouting off how mass extinctions happened in the past without human influence. Perfectly normal part of the lifecycle in Earth.

  • Draw a line (Score:5, Informative)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Monday February 11, 2019 @12:29AM (#58102152) Journal
    Is it [xkcd.com] really [xkcd.com] necessary [smbc-comics.com] to talk about [xkcd.com] extrapolation? [xkcd.com]
    • by alzoron ( 210577 ) on Monday February 11, 2019 @12:35AM (#58102166) Journal

      I slept in a half hour today. At this rate I'll be sleeping for nearly 200 hours per day this time next year.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by _Sharp'r_ ( 649297 )

        Just as true as the original headline: "Insect researchers could vanish within a century!"

        The italicized word is doing a lot of work in both sentences....

        • Re:Draw a line (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11, 2019 @03:59AM (#58102562)

          Just as true as the original headline: "Insect researchers could vanish within a century!"

          The italicized word is doing a lot of work in both sentences....

          And of course the solution is to sit on your ass and do nothing except make snarky comments and maybe increase the use of pesticides because the 70-90% declines in insect populations we are seeing already is clearly a non-issue.

      • by grep -v '.*' * ( 780312 ) on Monday February 11, 2019 @01:37AM (#58102304)

        At this rate I'll be sleeping for nearly 200 hours per day this time next year.

        Your ideas are intriguing to me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

      • by bondsbw ( 888959 )

        And in 100 years you'll be sleeping 18,000 hours a day.

        Which is pretty much the truth.

    • by mentil ( 1748130 )

      I extrapolate that by 2035, all intelligent discourse will consist of threads of XKCD links.

      • I extrapolate that by 2035, all intelligent discourse will consist of threads of XKCD links.

        We should be so lucky. I can imagine worse.

      • Re:Draw a line (Score:5, Interesting)

        by SirAstral ( 1349985 ) on Monday February 11, 2019 @01:00AM (#58102232)

        No it will not, XKCD links are actually a source of the problem.

        I like XKCD and all, but let get real for a minute, problems can hardly be summed up as such and are tantamount to nothing other than mudslinging. Unless someone is 100% in lock step with your beliefs on something then XKCD articles are mostly used to imply that dissenters are just ignorant morons. The problem is far more complex and what is even worse... XKCD's articles are better though of as a problem that all sides in every debate shares.

        Everyone has confirmation bias, and all sides have people that will overlook the sins of their fellow compatriots because the ends really do justify the means. Take an politically polarized subject and you will find someone calling for criminal charges, fines, imprisonment, and even the death of those disagreeing with them. There is no faster proof of an unscientific moron than when someone trots out one of these following fallacies...

        Consensus = Truth/Fact/Proof.
        Correlation = Causation.
        Gatekeeping qualifications... Only a certified, licensed, or recognized group/institution/team are allowed to have an opinion... except skeptics because their opinions are invalidated by the professionals that I happen to agree with.
        Gaslighting people for not believing in something.
        Asking for skeptics to prove a negative, or asking that they provide scientific evidence for their position when the evidence being unable to convince them is the evidence.
        Acceptance of controvertible evidence, scare or abundant, as good enough to be proof as though it were incontrovertible evidence.

        I don't consider name calling or generic aspersions as proof someone does not know what they are talking about. Even Einstein said... Only two things are infinite... the universe and human stupidity and I am not sure about the former.

        People are stupid... epicly stupid, and human stupidity is constantly being underrated. Especially proven by all the pseudo scientists guilty of the fallacies I mentioned above.

        Hopefully XKCD will keep being nothing more than a funny and witty little site where groups of pseudo intellectuals can mentally masturbate with each other.

    • Re:Draw a line (Score:5, Informative)

      by MrL0G1C ( 867445 ) on Monday February 11, 2019 @02:40AM (#58102434) Journal

      Why, so you can bury your head in the sand and sing la la la la la whilst we exterminate the planet? Sure there will be some slow down eventually but so far in Europe at least half the insects are dead already and we are heading for a disaster the likes of which we've never seen before if we don't change our rape and pollute the planet ways.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        Why, so you can bury your head in the sand and sing la la la la la whilst we exterminate the planet? Sure there will be some slow down eventually but so far in Europe at least half the insects are dead already and we are heading for a disaster the likes of which we've never seen before if we don't change our rape and pollute the planet ways.

        Does this mean that Europe will now import masses of insects from third world countries and call anyone who disagrees racist?

      • >whilst we exterminate the planet?

        You are a blithering alarmist imbecile. Go kill youself.

    • Re:Draw a line (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Cloud K ( 125581 ) on Monday February 11, 2019 @06:26AM (#58102820)

      Funny you should mention xkcd... https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]

  • by wierd_w ( 1375923 ) on Monday February 11, 2019 @12:34AM (#58102162)

    Insects are a keystone species in many food webs. Without insects, many plant waste products (wood logs, dead grasses, fallen leaves, etc) would not break down fast enough for the carbon and nutrients to be recycled into the food chain, or otherwise returned to the ecosystem.

    Add to that, that insects are essential pollinators for many plant species, including (and especially) those that are valuable human agricultural crops, (or are otherwise essential to other macrofauna), and you end up with bad juju very quickly.

    The loss of insect species at this rate is alarming. Very alarming. Making quips about mother fucking donald trump, or wasting everyone's goddamn time with pointing fingers at one political group or the other to preserve their complacent lifestyles and personal peace of mind--- rather than being mindful and alert about this problem, and going for the needed fixes to prevent the looming catastrophe this represents--- It is fucking damning as hell about why this catastrophe has happened in the first place; It's part of the problem, not any solution.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11, 2019 @01:12AM (#58102260)

      The insect loss rate is a grossly inaccurate, and covers tiny little chunk of land.

      "The 98% ground insect loss" between 1976 and 2012 was taken from a research plot of land in the Luquillo Mountains.

      This plot of land was DESTROYED in 1990 by Hurricane Hugo, as was the insect and animal populations. https://pr.water.usgs.gov/public/webb/hurricane_hugo.html

      The paper attempts to blame this on an increase in temperature and max/min temperatures without any conclusive evidence, without any good data points, and I imagine that its an attempt tot secure funding by the massive amounts of 'Climate Change' money there is. FYI, the only data points that are year on year contiguous that they have (2012 and 2013) actually show a small growth in the population.

      Climate Change is real and terrible, but the science behind this crap is utterly disgraceful.

      • by Truth_Quark ( 219407 ) on Monday February 11, 2019 @07:39AM (#58103002) Journal

        The insect loss rate is a grossly inaccurate, and covers tiny little chunk of land.

        What do you mean by "grossly inaccurate"?
        As in plus or minus how much?

        The authors seem to have data for 19 years (1993 to 2011, inclusive) for the walking sticks, and each of those was taken with 5 days of sampling over 10 traps for 50 samples to get each of the 19 points.

        So there's some evidence of statistical rigour. How small is the "tiny little chink" of land?
        As in what area?

        Do you have any reason to suspect that this area isn't representative?

        The 98% ground insect loss" between 1976 and 2012 was taken from a research plot of land in the Luquillo Mountains.

        This plot of land was DESTROYED in 1990 by Hurricane Hugo, as was the insect and animal populations.

        As you can see from figure 5 C [pnas.org], the walking stick population was declining overall since 1991. The decline is correlated with temperature (figure 5 D, same link as 5 C, above). It does not show a flat or recovering population as if the 1990 even had destroyed the population.

        The paper attempts to blame this on an increase in temperature and max/min temperatures without any conclusive evidence, without any good data points

        No they don't. They show that that is the likely cause using multiple regression, and discuss the alternative hypothesis of the effect of clear-cutting, showing to be not the case in the study area.

        ... and I imagine that its an attempt tot secure funding by the massive amounts of 'Climate Change' money there is.

        Oh, you're one of those conspiracy theory crackpots that think that climate scientists simply do 25 years of education, then get pathetically lowly paid positions as post docs rather than getting a highly paid job in the private sector, so that they can compete for grants that barely fund their research, and they do not get to pocket any of, because that's a sensible route to personal enrichment by deception?

        Not a wonder you had so many misconceptions about the paper. Which science-denial website did you pick up your opinions from, if you don't mind be asking?

        FYI, the only data points that are year on year contiguous that they have (2012 and 2013) actually show a small growth in the population.

        Nope. As you can see from the figure I link, they have data for every year from 1993 to 2011 for walking sticks as well. Decreases occurred on 10 of those sequential years.

        Climate Change is real and terrible, but the science behind this crap is utterly disgraceful.

        Irony (adj): a bit like an iron.

      • by bluegutang ( 2814641 ) on Monday February 11, 2019 @09:14AM (#58103262)

        It's not just one research plot in the Luquillo Mountains. There are cases of decline across the world. [scientificamerican.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by AbRASiON ( 589899 ) *

      Mod this guy up, the idiot whiners who keep referencing Trump need a hiding.

      Republicans are /generally/ worse with the environment, but this problem hardly, hardly rests entirely on their shoulders, in the slightest. Our entire culture, our entire behaviour as a species has led to this, almost every element of our worthless, stupid, consumerists lives have got us here. This is hardly some idiot time to whinge about god damn @#%ing moron Trump.

      The far left are now, as bad or worse than the far right.

      Get yo

    • Insects aren't going to disappear. At this point it's still in the stage of preliminary studies, and worth looking at more deeply, studying more. It's not worth the hyperbole and panic.
      • by Truth_Quark ( 219407 ) on Monday February 11, 2019 @03:27AM (#58102504) Journal

        Insects aren't going to disappear.

        When they say Four aquatic taxa are imperilled and have already lost a large proportion of species, that means that some of them have already disappeared. They are not saying that they will all disappear. But in Luquillo where there have been large population drops observed, these have been accompanied by parallel decreases in Luquillo’s insectivorous lizards, frogs, and birds [pnas.org].

        It's not worth the hyperbole and panic.

        The observed collapse of a food web in some areas. It's not hyperbole, and panic is justified, unless you're already in your late 80s or have terminal cancer.

        • by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

          It's worth looking into whether something can be done, but panic is neither justified nor helpful.

          Even if the study's conclusions are correct and we lose some insects and some animals that eat them. So what? How many people will die as a result?

          The few insect species that we do rely on are nowhere near extinction, while intensive farming techniques and cheap energy are bringing billions of people out of poverty, of whom a significant percentage would have died due to the lack of food, clean water or healthc

          • So what?

            Extinction Is a bad thing because it denies humanity access to the living thing and its ecosystem as a scientific resource.

            It is also a bad thing because we are a long way from understanding the interconnectedness of the global ecosystem, so we don't know which extinction will be followed by the extinction of a very important pollinator or competitor or predator of a pathogen that will lead to the impacts for us or important domestic or agricultural species.

            Extinction aside, drops in biomass of things l

            • by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

              Extinction Is a bad thing because it denies humanity access to the living thing and its ecosystem as a scientific resource.

              So the only negative there is that scientific progress might be slower?

              It is also a bad thing because we are a long way from understanding the interconnectedness of the global ecosystem, so we don't know which extinction will be followed by the extinction of a very important pollinator or competitor or predator of a pathogen that will lead to the impacts for us or important domestic or agricultural species.

              We can find out which species are pollinators and ensure they are unaffected. Actually those insects would be just fine if we just stop spaying insecticide on them. We already provide them with an abundant food source. And if their competitor or predator goes extinct, that's even better.

              Extinction aside, drops in biomass of things like 98% are indicative of a collapse of productivity of the land. Humans already use about 30% more resources per year than the world produces.

              What does that even mean? We can only consume 100% of what we produce. Who's making the extra 30%? Can you provide a citation?

              while intensive farming techniques and cheap energy are bringing billions of people out of poverty

              Great for them, but not relevant to the impact on humanity of the loss of some of the world's ecosystems.

              One leads to the other. You

              • So the only negative there is that scientific progress might be slower?

                There are many negatives to speices loss.
                One is the the biotechnology and medical science that we will never have access to.
                Another is the capacity of the world to carry life, including ours
                Another is the risk of losing a species or group that collapses an important system for human survival.

                We can find out which species are pollinators ....

                Well, we'd have to put a lot of money into species identification if we're going to identify all the pollinators. And a lot of time.
                But being a pollinator isn't the only mechanism by which a species is important to

          • It isn't clear that humans will survive a mass extinction, as apex predators a species like ours is most vulnerable to significant disruption to the food web.
            • by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

              Name a specific threat caused by climate change and I can find a point in time where stone-age humans survived that. If anything, it's rapid climate change that created humans in the first place.

              Besides, we're not exactly a normal apex predator given how we can eat everything and the majority of our calories come from plants.

              • Any one thing is survivable, yes. We are, however, seeing multiple buffered systems appear strained. Arguably we might be able to even survive a full biosphere collapse a la Blade Runner 2049, but that's still getting increasingly tenuous.
      • by DogDude ( 805747 )
        Insects aren't going to disappear.

        Source?
    • insects are essential pollinators for many plant species, including (and especially) those that are valuable human agricultural crops,

      Don't worry, Elon Musk will 3D print new crops that pollinate via IoT meshworks. With blockchains.

  • Debugging (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11, 2019 @01:13AM (#58102264)

    Don't worry, someone is just running Earth in debug mode.

  • Breaking News (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11, 2019 @01:14AM (#58102268)

    The entire planet Earth could spontaneously explode in 15 minutes.

    It won't, but it could. It COULD.

    • No. Actually, it could not. At least there is no indicator that would even remotely point in the general direction of that possibility.

  • by Dasher42 ( 514179 ) on Monday February 11, 2019 @01:31AM (#58102288)

    What happens when the food supply declines, because nutrients don't cycle with fauna, because pollinators are gone, because all the interrelated parts of nature unravel? That is the basis for a planet habitable to humans.

    Do we use more pesticides to fight harder for what's left, considering that pesticides cause the implosion of the very ecosystem benefits we depend on to raise food to begin with? Then we're finished.

    What happens to poor people when sustenance and shelter and resources that once came freely become scarce? I'm sure the rich will have their hydroponic gardens - atop places where oaks once rivaled wheat fields for output and salmon arrived to spawn in such numbers that it appeared possible to walk across rivers on their back. If manufactured solutions are a replacement for ecosystems for the many, though, why aren't we all snapping up real estate in places like the Sahara or Antarctica?

    We are turning an Eden into a much more barren world, because we so insist on dominating and concentrating its wealth. We don't live where ecosystems aren't established. Humans have got to learn to share the world with others - or else.

    • Since when do you care about the deplorables? The world would be a better place without the poor from what I've heard. As we no longer need a working class because of automation, they can either learn to code or die in a ditch somewhere. You're really going to pretend you give a crap about mouth breathing double digit IQs?
  • by AbRASiON ( 589899 ) * on Monday February 11, 2019 @01:54AM (#58102342) Journal

    For around the past 5 years, I've generally noticed simply less insects around in places I would traditionally expect them.

    Obviously they are still around but there just /seems/ to be less.

    I am firmly, firmly in the camp of the post, I definitely believe we've begun the 6'th mass extinction. It's gonna be a doozy.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's been the last couple of years of significant decline only. I'm a pilot, and as an unavoidable side effect of flying I kill lots of insects, which afterwards need to be cleaned from the plane. Cleaning has become noticeably easier over the last few years. However, I'm quite sure that this is a local artificial process, i.e. more advanced (less natural) agriculture in this area.

      Climate change is going to make an impact in future, especially if we're going to see the typical +5C up within a few decades as

    • by Holi ( 250190 )
      It's called the Holocene extinction event. It may or may not have been going on since we spread out around the globe.
  • by Dasher42 ( 514179 ) on Monday February 11, 2019 @02:47AM (#58102440)

    Insects provide $57 billion in ecological services to the USA alone, and that's just dealing with quantifiable things.

    https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]

  • by Truth_Quark ( 219407 ) on Monday February 11, 2019 @02:56AM (#58102452) Journal

    The analysis, published in the journal Biological Conservation, says intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides. Urbanization and climate change are also significant factors.

    No, habitat loss from intensive agriculture and urbanization are both the main driver.
    The heavy use of pesticides and fertilizers are second.
    Invasive species and diseases from microorganisms are third (not mentioned).
    Climate change is fourth.

    From the abstract:
    The main drivers of species declines appear to be in order of importance:
    i) habitat loss and conversion to intensive agriculture and urbanisation;
    ii) pollution, mainly that by synthetic pesticides and fertilisers;
    iii) biological factors, including pathogens and introduced species; and
    iv) climate change.

  • I'd be happy it was just spiders that were going extinct (and mosquitos and roaches, too). The rest of em' don't really bug me.
  • We're all gonna die!!! Eleventy!!! This may be a genuine problem. Or it may not. There is no way for the average person to know. Breathless headlines touting climatic disaster have become so ubiquitous that my first reaction - and that of many people - is a yawn. Ecologists and climate alarmists have done their causes active harm.

    Are insects declining? Sure, along with all other animal species that share our habitat. Intuitively, mass agriculture is the most likely culprit, since it creates huge zones of mo

    • by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

      Amusingly, the vegetarians may be doing active harm - I'll bet that good, natural grazing land has more biodiversity than a soy field.

      Too bad most people eat animals raised on corn.

      • Too bad most people eat animals raised on corn.

        No they don't.

        Beef cattle are grass fed for two thirds of their life, and only grain fed for the last third. The USDA tracks [usda.gov] these things.

    • "This may be a genuine problem. Or it may not. There is no way for the average person to know."

      Who gives a shit what the average person thinks? I only want to know what experts think. I don't call a burger flipper to fix plumbing.

      "Are insects declining? Sure, along with all other animal species that share our habitat."

      Oh, everything is suffering? That's all right then. I mean, it's actually wholly false, the coyotes, trash pandas, rats, cockroaches, and several other species have actually flourished while i

    • by shess ( 31691 )

      We're all gonna die!!! Eleventy!!! This may be a genuine problem. Or it may not. There is no way for the average person to know. Breathless headlines touting climatic disaster have become so ubiquitous that my first reaction - and that of many people - is a yawn. Ecologists and climate alarmists have done their causes active harm.

      Is it your position that if ecologists and "climate alarmists" didn't exist, that the average person would spend a few hours a week doing their research to understand how the world is progressing in the many ways that will indirectly harm them? If so, have you ever met another person in real life?

      The problem isn't that there are two sides, both doing research and trying to figure it out, and one side is "politically correct" and drowns out the other side. The problem is that some people are doing science,

  • Piss off

  • The solution (Score:4, Interesting)

    by vbdasc ( 146051 ) on Monday February 11, 2019 @06:45AM (#58102864)

    is obvious, if somewhat cynical. Stop using new pesticides. Get used to reduced yields and higher prices of food. There will be famines in the 3rd world. It is inevitable. The human population on our Earth is already well past the line where it can be fed safely. The first few decades will be the hardest. But a century in the future, our descendants will thank us for having evaded the looming catastrophe.

    • It sure is generous of you to condemn billions of brown people to death by starvation. I noticed how your own whites don't figure in the equation. Seeing alt-right opinions modded up to +4 is disturbing but par for the course on Slashdot.
      • by spitzak ( 4019 )

        You guys are pretty stupid to not recognize this is sarcasm.
        I suppose it is a bit refreshing to see this stupidity from the left, for a long time the right had almost a monopoly on stupid posts here...

    • https://youtu.be/Sm5xF-UYgdg [youtu.be]

      Please stop advocating for genocide and stop living in the past!

  • I used to spend a lot of time in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin islands in the 1970s. I remember anole lizards being all over the place. I recently visited Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands and I thought there were significantly fewer lizards running around. The lizards eat insects so I would be curious if there is any evidence of decreased lizard food causing trouble with the population. I must admit that I think that insects are remarkable adaptable and resilient and I find it hard to believe that
  • Stop the import of the bad pesticides.
    Stop removing the forests for farm land and housing.
    The bugs will return when the bad use of pesticides stops.
  • Christ... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Every single time there's a study like this, there's another study that wants us to panic over the exact opposite. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

    A few weeks ago--I'm pretty sure it was right here on Slashdot--we were being told we were headed for some calamity because world-wide warming was going to make the disease-carrying insert population explode and there wasn't a damned thing we can do about it. Except cut carbon, as usual the miracle solution.

    I'll believe any compelling evidence as much as the next guy, but

  • > intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides.

    This ! Agriculture is destructive on the environment, leading to loss of top soil, destruction of local plants and animals. Check what happened to Limberlost Swamp [wikipedia.org].

  • The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century

    But 0.975^100 ~ 8% not 0.

  • It's OK. In 100 years, Windows will still be chock full 'o bugs.

  • I confess I feel horribly guilty when I think about the world my children will be raising their children in. One hundred years from now looks so grim.
  • by Reziac ( 43301 ) * on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @12:42PM (#58110350) Homepage Journal

    Seriously. Farming introduces monocultures and reduces populations for large swaths of insects, such as locusts. Stop farming. Problem solved. (Or you could just let insects eat the crops, but the effect is the same.)

    Oh, btw, you'll have to run a lot more cattle to feed everyone...

    [waits for envirowhacks' heads to explode]

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