#insectapocalypse — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #insectapocalypse, aggregated by home.social.
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Last night with the windows and curtains open and lights on for reading as it was too hot to try to sleep, in the past the bedroom would’ve filled up with flying insects. How many came in yesterday? One.
This is Not Good.
It is in fact terrifying when you consider how important insects are to our having a living, functioning biosphere, and once I finished C.J.Stone’s excellent “Fierce Dancing” I began reading Dave Goulson (NOT Gorman!)’s “Silent Earth: averting the insect apocalypse”. I’m hoping it will have quick cheap and easy answers that will be hugely popular and politically simple to implement - but that goes against all experience, especially as the book has been out for five years…
#DontLookUp #InsectApocalypse #Insects #BiodiversityCrisis #Biodiversity
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#ecosystems #agriculture #insectapocalypse
Even in "remote" areas"They found that 79% of Fiji’s endemic ant species were in decline, with impacts beginning at the time of humans’ arrival on the islands about 3,000 years ago and speeding up in the past 300 years – coinciding with European contact, global trade and the arrival of modern agriculture."
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Scientists record the #soundscape of a healthy #reef and play it to #corals in a disturbed #environment: www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/68... Study: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... I spontaneously thought of the book 'Silent Earth' about the #insectApocalypse by @davegoulson.bsky.social
Playing sounds underwater to d... -
Experiment: "Some patches of mustard plants were surrounded by pipes that released ozone and nitrogen oxides — polluting gases produced around power plants and conventional cars. Other plots had pipes releasing normal air."
Result: "Plants smothered by pollutants were visited by up to 70 percent fewer insects overall, and their flowers received 90 percent fewer visits compared with those in unpolluted plots. The concentrations of pollutants were well below what US regulators consider safe."
Holy mackerel!
And the results are from 2 years ago:
"Anthropogenic air pollutants reduce insect-mediated pollination services", Ryalls et al. 2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749122000616 -
It's midnight, and there are no cars or pedestrians outside of my house at the moment. But there are about half a dozen large insects (probably moths) trapped in the beam from the streetlight nearest to us, and I would expect the same at every streetlight on our street.
Given that it's a residential street where nothing is going on, why not consider just turning it off at this time of night?
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Why #LightPollution is a solvable #environmental crisis
Excessive #OutdoorLighting is deadly to #animals and takes a toll on #HumanHealth and wellbeing, too. But when it comes to large-scale environmental problems, this one may be a relatively easy fix.
By Alissa Greenberg
Friday, April 1, 2022"In recent decades, lightbulbs made with #LEDs arrived, a revolution in energy efficiency with seemingly little downside. After all, an #LED bulb converts some 90% of the electricity it uses into light, whereas a conventional incandescent bulb only converts about 10%. And LED bulbs are touted as lasting up to 25 times longer.
"But the physics of LEDs make them fundamentally different from incandescents. While those traditional bulbs put out warm white light made of all colors mixed together, LEDs filter blue-rich light through a specialized phosphor material, producing light that appears white to the human eye but is still more blue-intense than incandescents’ light.
"But #BlueLight is also the most disruptive to our #nighttime environment because it mimics daylight, disrupting the hormone production and sleep cycles of both animals and humans.
"#Melatonin, one of those hormones, helps the immune system destroy renegade cells dividing out of control. That can lead to other health issues, including heightened rates of #cancer. And, 'we’re not the only ones who produce melatonin,' says Mario Motta, a cardiologist and trustee of the American Medical Association. Even amoebae produce melatonin'—meaning even amoebae might be vulnerable to light at night.
"The impacts of light pollution are evident everywhere from human health to astronomy research, but they come into particular focus in the recent phenomenon of global species #dieoffs. Between 100 million and a billion birds die every year due to light pollution, according to Massachusetts IDA chapter president James Lowenthal. New York City recently dealt with a huge die-off, 'with flocks of #MigratoryBirds slamming into buildings,' says Sarah Bois, an ecologist at the island’s Linda Loring Nature Foundation and a member of Nantucket Lights. 'They’re attracted to light.' A 2015 study at New York’s 9/11 'Tribute in Light'' installation showed an increase from 500 birds within half a kilometer of the light beams before they were turned on to 15,700 just minutes after.
"The issue is a double whammy for birds because they rely on #insects for food—and those populations are plummeting, with light pollution contributing significantly to the so-called "#InsectApocalypse.” By some estimates, one third of insects attracted to light sources at night die before morning, either due to exhaustion or because they get eaten. And according to a study in Germany, the number of insects in that country alone that die after being attracted to lights can number 100 billion or more in a single summer.
"Some starve to death searching for food that should appear bluer at twilight but is lit up amber under streetlights, says insect conservationist Avalon Owens, a doctoral candidate at Tufts University. Some are thrown off by light just the way we are, because of their #CircadianRhythms. #Pollinators whose schedules are altered by artificial light miss the #flowers they’re evolutionarily paired with, if the flowers naturally close and open with the warmth of the sun. And insects that rely on circadian rhythms for their yearly development don’t hibernate in time for winter and freeze to death.
"On #Nantucket, these phenomena are of particular concern because the island is home to a remarkably healthy population of northern long-eared #bats, which are endangered. Like many birds, the bats rely on insects for food and are easily dazzled by light, putting them in increasing jeopardy. Jack Dubinsky, director of the Maria Mitchell Aquarium on Nantucket, says he’s concerned that adding increasingly lit-up nights to the challenges of #ClimateChange, water quality, and #ecosystem collapse could put huge pressure on some already struggling species. 'The more curveballs we throw, the less likely they’ll be able to find their way,' he says.
Read more:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/light-pollution-led-nantucket-solutions/ -
Today in a workshop I played an interesting "educational game" that's designed to get policymakers to think about tradeoffs and decision making regarding light.
I enjoyed the experience and the perspectives of my co-players. But at one point when I suggested giving priority to turning off lights in a park for ecological reasons, a lighting designer said "what do you mean? It's an urban park, there isn't anything living there!"
😱 😭
#LightPollution
#InsectApocalypse
#Ecology
#Urbanism(3/)
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fascinating - and ignoring everything we (should) have learned about #LandUseChange, #agriculture, #water, #NitrogenPollution, #ecosystems, #HANPP and how this relates to #ClimateChange, #insectapocalypse, #biodiversity, #OceanDeadZone . Oh yes, and the cost of food as food ag competes with fuel ag for product. But sure, let's call it #Sustainable. That's why we have #BrandMarketing specialists.
Airlines Race Toward a Future of Powering Their Jets With Corn https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/30/climate/airlines-jet-fuel-ethanol-corn.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
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I complained a bit last week about #TheGreatSimplificaiton platforming Robert Sapolsky's reductionist, recycled anti-free-will blah, but this week
Nate Hagens is back in full form doing an amazingly scary interview with Nick Haddad about the #InsectApocalypse:https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/90-nick-haddad
If this doesn't totally freak you out, you do not understand the problem...
We need all the free will we can muster to do something about the ongoing mass extinction now!
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Birds are disappearing at an alarming rate due to insect decline. Insects are essential for birds as food, pollination and decomposition. Without insects, we could lose up to 60% of all bird species within a decade.
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‘Take a step back from the lawnmower. Keep your green-fingered hands where I can see them. And don’t even think about going for the strimmer…’
It’s June.
You’ve done the #NoMowMay thing.
But the little creatures need more from you.
Think before you mow!#bees #nature #wild #insects
#insectapocalypse #garden(via @thejournal_ie) https://jrnl.ie/6084217
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CW: We've all heard about the insect apocalypse and here's a personal experience of mine with it
I lived in UCLA married student housing on sawtelle until around 1969. These were old garden style apartments, now torn down and replaced, and had a ton of lantana hedges.
When the lantana was in bloom it was continually surrounded by clouds of one particular kind of moth. I still live in Los Angeles and there's still lantana everywhere but I can't remember the last time I saw one of those moths.
From wiki I think they were
Lantanophaga pusillidactyla, which is a southern California native. The wiki page doesn't say if it's endangered or not, but it's certainly gone from Los Angeles in historic quantities.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lantanophaga_pusillidactyla
#LosAngeles #LA #Lantana #SouthernCalifornia #Insects #InsectApocalypse #Extinction #LantanophagaPusillidactyla #Moths #Mothtodon #UCLA #MarriedStudentHousing
#Flowers #FloweringPlants #MassExtinction #SawtelleBlvd -
@wintersparv The paper:
"Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe", by Rigal et al. 2023
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2216573120"we uncover direct relationships between population time-series of 170 common bird species, monitored at more than 20,000 sites in 28 European countries, over 37 years, and four widespread anthropogenic pressures: agricultural intensification, change in forest cover, urbanisation and temperature change over the last decades."
"We find that agricultural intensification, in particular pesticides and fertiliser use, is the main pressure for most bird population declines, especially for invertebrate feeders."
#birds #EcosystemCollapse #Europe #Agriculture #insects #InsectApocalypse
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@gdeihl @breadandcircuses You're right! Researchers are actually counting bug splats to document this decline! #Splatometer #insectapocalypse
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/car-splatometer-tests-reveal-huge-decline-number-insects -
On my recent trip to the Keys, I drove over a couple of thousand miles total and never had to clean my windshield. I had like three small splats on the whole 10-day trip. When we'd take road trips in the 60s/70s, every stop required a windshield cleaning. #InsectApocalypse
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Would any of the entomologists out there venture a recommendation of a book about the decline of insects that is more suitable for scientists? I found several popular accounts, but I would like something well referenced to use as a guide for delving deeper into the parts of the scientific literature that particularly catch my interest.
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/GLOBAL-ENVIRONMENT/INSECT-APOCALYPSE/egpbykdxjvq/
#Insects #Entomology #InsectApocalypse #DeclineOfInsects #InsectDecline #Butterflies #Ants #CommunityEcology
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Exquisitely designed coverage from Reuters about the outsized role our tiny insect friends play in maintaining the delicate balance of life on Earth... and the decimation of insect species.
#MassExtinction #Biodiversity #InsectApocalypse #Entomology #Insects
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These kind of studies never get as much attention as the flawed 'global linear decline' narrative. But they are a good reminder that there's a lot of ecological complexity involved in measuring insect trends & results of single studies don't apply globally #InsectConservation #InsectApocalypse #InsectDeclines https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10841-022-00445-9
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Some excellent graphics in this Reuters piece exploring the state of #InsectDecline & the extent of our knowledge.
"[Insects are] the fabric tethering together every freshwater & terrestrial ecosystem across the planet.”
"The world has lost 5%-10% of all insect species in the last 150 years... 250,000 and 500,000 species"
#SciComm #Insects #Entomology #biodiversity #InsectApocalypse #insectageddon
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/GLOBAL-ENVIRONMENT/INSECT-APOCALYPSE/egpbykdxjvq/
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I wrote a little bit about bees for Sentient Media!
#bumblebees #insectapocalypse #insects #play #sciencewriting