#insectdeclines — Public Fediverse posts

"The world is a sadder place for [no longer] having a giant earwig." - Dave Goulson
#Insects #Arthropods #InsectDeclines #Extinction

I was talking to some bikers in a pub (as you do) and they suggested that #ecology should recruit bikers to collect data more often. In the same manner as there was the #Splatometer experiment recently in Kent looking at insects on car number plates, they think that someone should develop a way to quantify insects on motorcycle visors & do a study. (One commented that the insect visor splats increased enormously once he crossed into Scotland!) #InsectDeclines #Entomology #InsectMonitoring

This 62% decline in insect numbers across three decades is particularly disturbing because it was measured in a relatively remote habitat with limited direct human disturbance. Thus, more likely linked to climate change than other causes.

#InsectDeclines #Biodiversity #Climate #Extinction

https://coloradosun.com/2023/08/04/climate-change-insect-decline-rmbl-gothic-colorado/

On a hot, humid night with no moon, no competing outdoor lights, no wind, in a 600 acre nature reserve in mid-July, I should be seeing more insects at the blacklight than this. Disappointing.

At #UTAustin's Stengl Lost Pines Station in Bastrop, TX.

#Insects #Entomology #Biodiversity #InsectDeclines

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