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> The second driver is habitat loss — the inexorable creep of urbanization, deforestation and sterile suburban lawns, which host fewer and less-diverse ranges o

> The second driver is habitat loss — the inexorable creep of urbanization, deforestation and sterile suburban lawns, which host fewer and less-diverse ranges of insects. I don't buy this as a cause of a global decline, though. In many areas things have gone in the opposite direction. The Appalachian mountains were clear cut in the 1800s and now are back to forest. If this theory is correct, I would expect there to have been a massive increase in insect populations on the east coast.

snypher 11mo ago
Forest isn't some Boolean you can toggle 0 and 1. It's not the same forest, why would we expect the same inhabitants?
- terminalshort 11mo ago
  If you want to claim that the forest that is there now is somehow dramatically worse for insects than the forest that grew there before, that's going to need some evidence behind it.
  - samschooler 11mo ago
    There was a study done. I’m not sure exactly the study, but it’s from a book called Natures Ghosts. It talks about a Roman farm from around 0AD. The farm plot was clear cut, while the forest around it was never touched, including up to this day. The scientists cataloged the plant and animal species from both the farm plot and the untouched forest. Even though the farm plot had massive trees, and hasn’t been disturbed for 2000 years, the difference in species was massive. On the ancient farm plot: many parasitic species/invasive, off the plot: more prominence of delicate or unique species; just a few hundred meters apart. This is what “different forest” is. Edit: found the study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17601136/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17601136/
    - terminalshort 11mo ago
      The study describes it like this, which sounds like it's the opposite: > Plant species richness strongly increases toward the center of the settlements, and the frequency of neutrophilous and nitrogen-demanding species is higher. When I hear things like "delicate or unique species" I get the feeling it's not a particularly scientific conclusion.
      - samschooler 11mo ago
        So if you read the book: this is from a chapter talking about humans introducing phosphorus fertilizers to the soil has long term impacts on the types of species living in an area. Generally moving in the direction of more aggressive plants that can take advantage of the phosphorus. Many endemic species can’t, therefore are crowded out by faster growing species. The key phrase from your quote is: “neutrophilous and nitrogen-demanding species”. The phosphorus helps in the nitrogen fixation.
  - BDPW 11mo ago
    It's a pretty common thing that replanted forests turn into monocultures that don't have a lot of value for biodiversity. This then leads to all sorts of problems that healthy diverse forests don't have. I don't know if that's the case with the Appalachian forests but this is depressingly common. That being said, there are good steps being taken, e.g. the rewilding projects by mossy earth.
    - terminalshort 11mo ago
      It wasn't replanted. It just grew back when the farms were abandoned.
  - fnordian_slip 11mo ago
    Not all forests are the same. Old growth forests have a lot more diversity than something cut down in the 1800s, so that would fall under "dramatically worse for insects" imho. Of course not for all insects, but I would guess that GP didn't mean highly succesful species like ants, which seem to thrive pretty much everywhere. I recommend visiting an old growth forest if you can find one in your area, they're a completely different beast compared to the ones you might be used to. It's really worth it!
anon84873628 11mo ago
I'm confused by your comment about the Appalachians. Were talking about the last handful of decades, not two centuries. The country is less wild today than ever before. More subdivisions, more strip malls, more farms.
- terminalshort 11mo ago
  No it isn't less wild than ever. It was literally clear cut for farming in the 1800s. I know that this goes against some popular narratives, but if you look it up you will find that it is very true. Also the amount of forest land in the US has been increasing in the last few decades too.
  - anon84873628 11mo ago
    It's not just about forests. Prairie, wetlands, scrublands, and even dessert are all important ecosystems. Are we really claiming that human development hasn't caused significant habitat loss?
- WillPostForFood 11mo ago
  This is actually not true, the amount of forest land has been stable for about 100 years. Most of the decline is in the 19th century as population expanded west. https://imgur.com/a/IhmnKWD https://imgur.com/a/IhmnKWD Land dedicated to farming has also declined for the last ~75 years. Peak was 1954 with about 1.16 billion acres. It is down to about 875 million acres. https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-detail?chartId=111304 https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-deta...
  - anon84873628 11mo ago
    Ah well I misspoke then. Everything is fine with the ecosystem and human development isn't the cause of mass extinctions.
stinos 11mo ago
I don't buy this as a cause of a global decline, though The definition of habitat loss here is a bit poor because it doesn't mention the main contributor: farm land which over the past century got changed from something where insects could still survive to something which is more of a barren wasteland to them. And the thrid factor which goes hand in hand with that is pesticide use. In many areas things have gone in the opposite direction. Could be, but I'm pretty sure globally there are more areas where it is not going in that direction though. Or at least hasn't been going over the past century. The Appalachian mountains were clear cut in the 1800s and now are back to forest. If this theory is correct, I would expect there to have been a massive increase in insect populations on the east coast. Fir starters that's only one, quite localized example. Also the reasoning doesn't hold - ecosystems are complex systems. It's not because one specific area has been properly restored that insects would suddenly go there from surrounding areas, let alone that from the restored areas they then would suddenly have colonized neighboring areas (the entire east coast as you mention). Mainly because the speed at which they can colonize is limited and insects bound to forests don't necessarily all survive in other types of habitats.
- terminalshort 11mo ago
  I was only talking about the land use argument. Pesticides seem like a much more likely cause to me, especially because pesticide use on developed land can also cause contamination on undeveloped land.
forgotoldacc 11mo ago
Forests were clear cut in the 1800s, yeah. But plant life remained. The latter half of the 1900s moved us in a direction where nature was clear cut and paved over with a mix of rocks and petroleum, which is not very conducive to life. Then we kept moving in that direction by building massive parking lots that are empty most of the time and putting day/night cycle disrupting lights everywhere to keep those paved barren areas lit all night. Then because those dim yellow lights weren't enough, we switched to bright white lights that simulate daytime that blast all hours of the night just to really drive in the day and night cycle disruption. Also, we replaced all native plants with ugly grass. And because that grass struggles to survive, we spray the grass with poison to kill any life that may consume it and any local plants that may attempt to thrive amongst the grass. Also, we constantly mow that grass to keep it just 1 inch long and kill anything that may survived there even despite the poison and lack of biodiversity. And whenever leaves from local plants fall, which serve to replenish soil during decomposition, and act as food and shelter for insects, we get a loud ass leaf blower to put it all into a pile, put that into a garbage bag, and ship it all off to a garbage dump to ferment inside a bag for the next few hundred years so we can make a lot of methane to accelerate global warming for generations to come. 1800s folks stupidly cut down trees because they didn't know any better, but they weren't actively destroying everything and intentionally making it absolutely uninhabitable like our generation does. And now we even have bizarre concepts like HOAs, which mandate absolute and completely intentional environmental destruction for the sake of uniformity.
- terminalshort 11mo ago
  You are vastly overestimating the amount of land that is taken up by urban and suburban areas. Drive across the country and you will see that very little of the time you spend is in those areas. And then even that is an overestimate because those roads aren't random. They were specifically built to go through all the biggest cities on the way.
  - forgotoldacc 11mo ago
    Fly over America and you'll see that it's basically all farmland , paved over, or desert. Lots of roads have trees lining them because the space between them is hard to use. Go up in an airplane above those roads and you'll see there isn't too many truly thick forest, outside of mountains where it's hard to build things. Alternatively, pan around the world with google maps. America is only about 33% forest. And even then, insects don't only live in forests. They live in fields, marshes, all sorts of terrain. And it's overwhelmingly tamed and sterilized.

snypher 11mo ago

Forest isn't some Boolean you can toggle 0 and 1. It's not the same forest, why would we expect the same inhabitants?

terminalshort 11mo ago
If you want to claim that the forest that is there now is somehow dramatically worse for insects than the forest that grew there before, that's going to need some evidence behind it.
- samschooler 11mo ago
  There was a study done. I’m not sure exactly the study, but it’s from a book called Natures Ghosts. It talks about a Roman farm from around 0AD. The farm plot was clear cut, while the forest around it was never touched, including up to this day. The scientists cataloged the plant and animal species from both the farm plot and the untouched forest. Even though the farm plot had massive trees, and hasn’t been disturbed for 2000 years, the difference in species was massive. On the ancient farm plot: many parasitic species/invasive, off the plot: more prominence of delicate or unique species; just a few hundred meters apart. This is what “different forest” is. Edit: found the study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17601136/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17601136/
  - terminalshort 11mo ago
    The study describes it like this, which sounds like it's the opposite: > Plant species richness strongly increases toward the center of the settlements, and the frequency of neutrophilous and nitrogen-demanding species is higher. When I hear things like "delicate or unique species" I get the feeling it's not a particularly scientific conclusion.
    - samschooler 11mo ago
      So if you read the book: this is from a chapter talking about humans introducing phosphorus fertilizers to the soil has long term impacts on the types of species living in an area. Generally moving in the direction of more aggressive plants that can take advantage of the phosphorus. Many endemic species can’t, therefore are crowded out by faster growing species. The key phrase from your quote is: “neutrophilous and nitrogen-demanding species”. The phosphorus helps in the nitrogen fixation.
- BDPW 11mo ago
  It's a pretty common thing that replanted forests turn into monocultures that don't have a lot of value for biodiversity. This then leads to all sorts of problems that healthy diverse forests don't have. I don't know if that's the case with the Appalachian forests but this is depressingly common. That being said, there are good steps being taken, e.g. the rewilding projects by mossy earth.
  - terminalshort 11mo ago
    It wasn't replanted. It just grew back when the farms were abandoned.
- fnordian_slip 11mo ago
  Not all forests are the same. Old growth forests have a lot more diversity than something cut down in the 1800s, so that would fall under "dramatically worse for insects" imho. Of course not for all insects, but I would guess that GP didn't mean highly succesful species like ants, which seem to thrive pretty much everywhere. I recommend visiting an old growth forest if you can find one in your area, they're a completely different beast compared to the ones you might be used to. It's really worth it!

anon84873628 11mo ago

I'm confused by your comment about the Appalachians. Were talking about the last handful of decades, not two centuries. The country is less wild today than ever before. More subdivisions, more strip malls, more farms.

terminalshort 11mo ago
No it isn't less wild than ever. It was literally clear cut for farming in the 1800s. I know that this goes against some popular narratives, but if you look it up you will find that it is very true. Also the amount of forest land in the US has been increasing in the last few decades too.
- anon84873628 11mo ago
  It's not just about forests. Prairie, wetlands, scrublands, and even dessert are all important ecosystems. Are we really claiming that human development hasn't caused significant habitat loss?
WillPostForFood 11mo ago
This is actually not true, the amount of forest land has been stable for about 100 years. Most of the decline is in the 19th century as population expanded west. https://imgur.com/a/IhmnKWD https://imgur.com/a/IhmnKWD Land dedicated to farming has also declined for the last ~75 years. Peak was 1954 with about 1.16 billion acres. It is down to about 875 million acres. https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-detail?chartId=111304 https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-deta...
- anon84873628 11mo ago
  Ah well I misspoke then. Everything is fine with the ecosystem and human development isn't the cause of mass extinctions.

stinos 11mo ago

I don't buy this as a cause of a global decline, though The definition of habitat loss here is a bit poor because it doesn't mention the main contributor: farm land which over the past century got changed from something where insects could still survive to something which is more of a barren wasteland to them. And the thrid factor which goes hand in hand with that is pesticide use. In many areas things have gone in the opposite direction. Could be, but I'm pretty sure globally there are more areas where it is not going in that direction though. Or at least hasn't been going over the past century. The Appalachian mountains were clear cut in the 1800s and now are back to forest. If this theory is correct, I would expect there to have been a massive increase in insect populations on the east coast. Fir starters that's only one, quite localized example. Also the reasoning doesn't hold - ecosystems are complex systems. It's not because one specific area has been properly restored that insects would suddenly go there from surrounding areas, let alone that from the restored areas they then would suddenly have colonized neighboring areas (the entire east coast as you mention). Mainly because the speed at which they can colonize is limited and insects bound to forests don't necessarily all survive in other types of habitats.

terminalshort 11mo ago
I was only talking about the land use argument. Pesticides seem like a much more likely cause to me, especially because pesticide use on developed land can also cause contamination on undeveloped land.

forgotoldacc 11mo ago

Forests were clear cut in the 1800s, yeah. But plant life remained. The latter half of the 1900s moved us in a direction where nature was clear cut and paved over with a mix of rocks and petroleum, which is not very conducive to life. Then we kept moving in that direction by building massive parking lots that are empty most of the time and putting day/night cycle disrupting lights everywhere to keep those paved barren areas lit all night. Then because those dim yellow lights weren't enough, we switched to bright white lights that simulate daytime that blast all hours of the night just to really drive in the day and night cycle disruption. Also, we replaced all native plants with ugly grass. And because that grass struggles to survive, we spray the grass with poison to kill any life that may consume it and any local plants that may attempt to thrive amongst the grass. Also, we constantly mow that grass to keep it just 1 inch long and kill anything that may survived there even despite the poison and lack of biodiversity. And whenever leaves from local plants fall, which serve to replenish soil during decomposition, and act as food and shelter for insects, we get a loud ass leaf blower to put it all into a pile, put that into a garbage bag, and ship it all off to a garbage dump to ferment inside a bag for the next few hundred years so we can make a lot of methane to accelerate global warming for generations to come. 1800s folks stupidly cut down trees because they didn't know any better, but they weren't actively destroying everything and intentionally making it absolutely uninhabitable like our generation does. And now we even have bizarre concepts like HOAs, which mandate absolute and completely intentional environmental destruction for the sake of uniformity.

terminalshort 11mo ago
You are vastly overestimating the amount of land that is taken up by urban and suburban areas. Drive across the country and you will see that very little of the time you spend is in those areas. And then even that is an overestimate because those roads aren't random. They were specifically built to go through all the biggest cities on the way.
- forgotoldacc 11mo ago
  Fly over America and you'll see that it's basically all farmland , paved over, or desert. Lots of roads have trees lining them because the space between them is hard to use. Go up in an airplane above those roads and you'll see there isn't too many truly thick forest, outside of mountains where it's hard to build things. Alternatively, pan around the world with google maps. America is only about 33% forest. And even then, insects don't only live in forests. They live in fields, marshes, all sorts of terrain. And it's overwhelmingly tamed and sterilized.