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This is making the headlines in Germany right now: http://www.zeit.de/wissen/umwelt/2017-10/insektensterben-fluginsekten-gesamtmasse-rueckgang-studie http://ww

This is making the headlines in Germany right now: http://www.zeit.de/wissen/umwelt/2017-10/insektensterben-fluginsekten-gesamtmasse-rueckgang-studie http://www.zeit.de/wissen/umwelt/2017-10/insektensterben-flu... http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/insekten-in-deutschland-forscher-bestaetigen-insektensterben-a-1173525.html http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/insekten-in-deutsch... http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/insektensterben-dramatischer-insektenschwund-in-deutschland-1.3713567 http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/insektensterben-dramatisch... Der Spiegel discusses issues in the methodology of the data collection. The intervals over the years weren't uniform, data was collected by volunteers/hobbyists and they did not measure the dry mass weight. There are differing opinions whether or not those issues have relevance. SZ gives some details on suspected causes. Neither climate change (warmer weather should yield more insects, not less) nor changes in plant diversity can explain the observed effects alone. Main suspects: - agricultural fertilizers, especially nitrogen - pesticides, especially neonicotinoides

ChuckMcM 9y ago
The massive use of neonicotinoides would not surprise me given the research of its impact on bee colony collapse.
- sogen 9y ago
  Maybe a side effect of less bees pollination?
  - ChuckMcM 9y ago
    I was listening to an entomologist podcast on colony collapse and they were suggesting that as members of the colony became more and more impaired the interdependency of the various bee groups (workers, foragers, queen) was compromised and then "all of a sudden" the hive was unable to reliably function. And large social group (ants, termites, bees, etc) might be similarly affected.
    - sitkack 9y ago
      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.
      - asquabventured 9y ago
        What city has this problem? I haven't heard of a burrito extinction event, maybe I missed the news though.
        sitkack 9y ago
        If the burritos are extinct, you are definitely out of foie gras. First they came for PB&J, but I didn't complain, I ate lobster bisque.
      - dreamcompiler 9y 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-cops-don-t-live-in-city-2374607.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Most-S-F-firefighters-...
        dsfyu404ed 9y ago
        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.
      - KozmoNau7 9y ago
        All of which is only exacerbated by the über-rich buying property as investments, leading to almost completely empty neighborhoods, which obviously can't support convenience stores, laundromats, bars, cafes, bookstores and all of the other local business that support and are supported by locals.
kpil 9y ago
Just speculating wildly and looking at Sweden, for example meadows have more or less disappeared since 30-40 years. I mean flowering meadows, not pastures for grazing. The meadows have been turned into forests and to a lesser extent pastures. It's not a few percent, it's 30% of the land, probably more in Germany where there are much lest forests than in Sweden. The bio-diversity in a meadow strikes me as much higher than heavily grazed pastures or a mono-culture wheat fields or pine forest.
- javajosh 9y ago
  My understanding is that there is a give and take between meadows and forests that occurs on multi-year cycle. Meadows grow when there is too much water, and trees grow when the water recedes. You can see this in the Yosemite Valley really clearly. Perhaps this is a sign that the freshwater in the ground is going away.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    > Perhaps this is a sign that the freshwater in the ground is going away. Now look what Nestle/other food giants, but also slaughterhouses and animal farms, do: they use groundwater with private wells, and they extract more water than can be replenished... boom.
    - WillReplyfFood 9y ago
      I wonder if sabotaging such private wells, by conrecte blocking parts of the aquifying layer would constitute as self-defense.
      - mschuster91 9y ago
        Most likely not, and you risk disruption of underground water flows by injecting huge amounts of concrete into the ground...
  - chewz 9y ago
    Large areas had been meliorated (in 70-ties in my country Poland) so the meadows are gone for good outside of some protected areas. All these wild weeping willow which had been a signature of Masovian landscape and which I still remember from childhood visits to family farm died soon thereafter. So did the frogs. It is like coming to different country now.
stevenwoo 9y ago
That unsuredness may be true about the collective data here but we definitely know that one particular species is in precipitous decline - the Monarch butterfly with it's 3400 mile annual journey to go north/south with the seasons. Since they only eat one plant, we could eliminate some causes directly (although they could be secondary causes - like making other plants/insects thrive). https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0301/Mexico-s-monarch-butterfly-population-makes-a-comeback.-What-happened https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0301/Mexico-s-monarch...
reacweb 9y ago
Don't forget glyphosate. Have you watched "mosanto in trial" ? The facts are frightening.
Xylakant 9y ago
It's worth noting that data was collected by amateurs in the sense that they're doing this on their spare time but some of them are highly regarded in their field. Quote from http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/where-have-all-insects-gone http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/where-have-all-insect... Members of the Krefeld society have been observing, recording, and collecting insects from the region—and around the world—since 1905. Some of the roughly 50 members—including teachers, telecommunication technicians, and a book publisher—have become world experts on their favorite insects. Siegfried Cymorek, for instance, who was active in the society from the 1950s through the 1980s, never completed high school. He was drafted into the army as a teenager, and after the war he worked in the wood-protection division at a local chemical plant. But because of his extensive knowledge of wood-boring beetles, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1979. Over the years, members have written more than 2000 publications on insect taxonomy, ecology, and behavior.

ChuckMcM 9y ago

The massive use of neonicotinoides would not surprise me given the research of its impact on bee colony collapse.

sogen 9y ago
Maybe a side effect of less bees pollination?
- ChuckMcM 9y ago
  I was listening to an entomologist podcast on colony collapse and they were suggesting that as members of the colony became more and more impaired the interdependency of the various bee groups (workers, foragers, queen) was compromised and then "all of a sudden" the hive was unable to reliably function. And large social group (ants, termites, bees, etc) might be similarly affected.
  - sitkack 9y ago
    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.
    - asquabventured 9y ago
      What city has this problem? I haven't heard of a burrito extinction event, maybe I missed the news though.
      - sitkack 9y ago
        If the burritos are extinct, you are definitely out of foie gras. First they came for PB&J, but I didn't complain, I ate lobster bisque.
    - dreamcompiler 9y 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-cops-don-t-live-in-city-2374607.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Most-S-F-firefighters-...
      - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
        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.
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      All of which is only exacerbated by the über-rich buying property as investments, leading to almost completely empty neighborhoods, which obviously can't support convenience stores, laundromats, bars, cafes, bookstores and all of the other local business that support and are supported by locals.

kpil 9y ago

Just speculating wildly and looking at Sweden, for example meadows have more or less disappeared since 30-40 years. I mean flowering meadows, not pastures for grazing. The meadows have been turned into forests and to a lesser extent pastures. It's not a few percent, it's 30% of the land, probably more in Germany where there are much lest forests than in Sweden. The bio-diversity in a meadow strikes me as much higher than heavily grazed pastures or a mono-culture wheat fields or pine forest.

javajosh 9y ago
My understanding is that there is a give and take between meadows and forests that occurs on multi-year cycle. Meadows grow when there is too much water, and trees grow when the water recedes. You can see this in the Yosemite Valley really clearly. Perhaps this is a sign that the freshwater in the ground is going away.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > Perhaps this is a sign that the freshwater in the ground is going away. Now look what Nestle/other food giants, but also slaughterhouses and animal farms, do: they use groundwater with private wells, and they extract more water than can be replenished... boom.
  - WillReplyfFood 9y ago
    I wonder if sabotaging such private wells, by conrecte blocking parts of the aquifying layer would constitute as self-defense.
    - mschuster91 9y ago
      Most likely not, and you risk disruption of underground water flows by injecting huge amounts of concrete into the ground...
- chewz 9y ago
  Large areas had been meliorated (in 70-ties in my country Poland) so the meadows are gone for good outside of some protected areas. All these wild weeping willow which had been a signature of Masovian landscape and which I still remember from childhood visits to family farm died soon thereafter. So did the frogs. It is like coming to different country now.

stevenwoo 9y ago

That unsuredness may be true about the collective data here but we definitely know that one particular species is in precipitous decline - the Monarch butterfly with it's 3400 mile annual journey to go north/south with the seasons. Since they only eat one plant, we could eliminate some causes directly (although they could be secondary causes - like making other plants/insects thrive). https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0301/Mexico-s-monarch-butterfly-population-makes-a-comeback.-What-happened https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0301/Mexico-s-monarch...

reacweb 9y ago

Don't forget glyphosate. Have you watched "mosanto in trial" ? The facts are frightening.

Xylakant 9y ago

It's worth noting that data was collected by amateurs in the sense that they're doing this on their spare time but some of them are highly regarded in their field. Quote from http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/where-have-all-insects-gone http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/where-have-all-insect... Members of the Krefeld society have been observing, recording, and collecting insects from the region—and around the world—since 1905. Some of the roughly 50 members—including teachers, telecommunication technicians, and a book publisher—have become world experts on their favorite insects. Siegfried Cymorek, for instance, who was active in the society from the 1950s through the 1980s, never completed high school. He was drafted into the army as a teenager, and after the war he worked in the wood-protection division at a local chemical plant. But because of his extensive knowledge of wood-boring beetles, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1979. Over the years, members have written more than 2000 publications on insect taxonomy, ecology, and behavior.