4 ms·

I lived in the country for the first 20 years of my life. Insect populations varied wildly year by year. Like hugely wildly. One year it would be tons, swallow

I lived in the country for the first 20 years of my life. Insect populations varied wildly year by year. Like hugely wildly. One year it would be tons, swallowing bugs as you'd cycle, the next you'd hardly notice them. Little anecdotes like yours are honestly not meaningful as you don't realise just how variable these things are naturally.

mistrial9 8y ago
yeah , except that in this case, he is on to something.. dismissing the emotion and the anecdotal evidence seems super-convenient
- icebraining 8y ago
  Convenient for whom?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lisper 8y ago
Yes, my anecdote in isolation means nothing. But it's not in isolation. This is a real world-wide phenomenon: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeti...
- mjburgess 8y ago
  Yes, but not to the degree of your anecdote. You observed the background cycles of insect population variation. No person is in a position to observe the next effect of population decreases across many such cycles.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    > You observed the background cycles of insect population variation. They openly described their statement as an anecdote. Meanwhile, you're making a pretty conclusive statement here, without any apparent evidence for it. How do you know their observed reduction in insect population is "background cycle" and not the global reductions scientists have been empirically observing?
    - lisper 8y ago
      Just for the record, I also asked several locals if they noticed fewer insects. They all said yes, that the change had been dramatic over the last few years.
    - mjburgess 8y ago
      Because no person can conclusively observe statistical effects, of this kind, in this way. It's really hard to conclude "the insect population is dropping" by being one person in one environment once. Even by being multiple people, even over time. That's why science exists. And it's really difficult (eg., cf., the replication crisis).
      - ceejayoz 8y ago
        The poster simply indicated they'd experienced an anecdotal situation that matches closely with the scientifically observed declines. You have to really misread the comment you replied to in order to claim it stated it was "conclusively observing statistical effects".
greeneggs 8y ago
Please read the article: > A monarch count led by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation in November found only 28,429 of the iconic orange-and-black insects wintering along the California coast. That figure represents an 85% drop from the previous year and a 99.4% plunge compared with 40 years ago. > “In our grove alone we would have 250,000 monarchs in the 1980s,” said Danielle Bronson, a state park interpreter at Pismo State Beach. “This season we had about 3,000 at our peak.” > Other butterfly populations have been hit even worse. > At least 20 species are disappearing faster than the monarch, said Matt Forister, an ecologist at the University of Nevada, Reno. > They include the large marble butterfly (Euchloe ausonides), the field crescent (Phyciodes campestris campestris), the west coast lady (Vanessa annabella), the common sooty wing (Pholisora catullus) and the California ringlet (Coenonympha tullia california). It is more than a boom and bust issue, although for painted ladies it does seem to be a cycle: > Even the painted ladies (Vanessa cardui) appeared to be suffering as recently as last year. In 2018, Shapiro counted just 27 of the butterflies at the 10 sites he monitors on a regular basis. A year earlier, that number was 512.

mistrial9 8y ago

yeah , except that in this case, he is on to something.. dismissing the emotion and the anecdotal evidence seems super-convenient

icebraining 8y ago
Convenient for whom?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

lisper 8y ago

Yes, my anecdote in isolation means nothing. But it's not in isolation. This is a real world-wide phenomenon: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeti...

mjburgess 8y ago
Yes, but not to the degree of your anecdote. You observed the background cycles of insect population variation. No person is in a position to observe the next effect of population decreases across many such cycles.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  > You observed the background cycles of insect population variation. They openly described their statement as an anecdote. Meanwhile, you're making a pretty conclusive statement here, without any apparent evidence for it. How do you know their observed reduction in insect population is "background cycle" and not the global reductions scientists have been empirically observing?
  - lisper 8y ago
    Just for the record, I also asked several locals if they noticed fewer insects. They all said yes, that the change had been dramatic over the last few years.
  - mjburgess 8y ago
    Because no person can conclusively observe statistical effects, of this kind, in this way. It's really hard to conclude "the insect population is dropping" by being one person in one environment once. Even by being multiple people, even over time. That's why science exists. And it's really difficult (eg., cf., the replication crisis).
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      The poster simply indicated they'd experienced an anecdotal situation that matches closely with the scientifically observed declines. You have to really misread the comment you replied to in order to claim it stated it was "conclusively observing statistical effects".

greeneggs 8y ago

Please read the article: > A monarch count led by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation in November found only 28,429 of the iconic orange-and-black insects wintering along the California coast. That figure represents an 85% drop from the previous year and a 99.4% plunge compared with 40 years ago. > “In our grove alone we would have 250,000 monarchs in the 1980s,” said Danielle Bronson, a state park interpreter at Pismo State Beach. “This season we had about 3,000 at our peak.” > Other butterfly populations have been hit even worse. > At least 20 species are disappearing faster than the monarch, said Matt Forister, an ecologist at the University of Nevada, Reno. > They include the large marble butterfly (Euchloe ausonides), the field crescent (Phyciodes campestris campestris), the west coast lady (Vanessa annabella), the common sooty wing (Pholisora catullus) and the California ringlet (Coenonympha tullia california). It is more than a boom and bust issue, although for painted ladies it does seem to be a cycle: > Even the painted ladies (Vanessa cardui) appeared to be suffering as recently as last year. In 2018, Shapiro counted just 27 of the butterflies at the 10 sites he monitors on a regular basis. A year earlier, that number was 512.