In 2018, publications about decline of insects dominated public debate in Germany (#Insektensterben). You probably all know about the famous Krefeld study and follow-up discussions, most of which cited more studies, often reaching back decades, and pointing into the same direction: alarming decline ! (In fact, there was an EU Project entitled ALARM). However, hypotheses about the causes remained vague and speculative, with agriculture and pesticide use among the "usual suspects". Consequently, lobby-driven articles in the press and the German blogosphere tried to downplay the effects, criticizing limits of the dataset and the statistics, and called for more and better data. While there is general consensus that better monitoring and more data are needed, there seems to be a lack of suggestions for well-designed data sampling (e.g. varying distance to fields with/without pesticide use) or even experimental designs. This is where Exploratories could contribute - either by evaluation of exsiting plots/datasets and/or design of new experiments.
We are currently analyzing the arthropod time-series from the Exploratories. Results will hopefully be published soon!
In Switzerland we have also the same problem. So far we have only part of the answer: monoculture, disappearance of many weeds and plant species and the extensive use of insecticides. Disappearance of insects in large number has a profound effect on the food chain: a decrease in the number of insect eating birds...
Neonicotinoids are among the major suspects! Neonics degrade slowly and accumulate, particularly in waterbodies, affecting aquatic insects. It is expensive, but this can be measured directly, and I think we need such correlation studies
light pollution should also be considered.
Public lights & car lights attract and kill a lot of insect.
I also wonder about the fact that dung (catlle horses etc) is more and more fungi free because of the use of antibiotic, making this major source of insect (flies etc.) perhaps less insect-friendly.
indeed ! Ivermektin and other veterninary drugs (against ticks and flukeworms) damage dung insect communities
We are studying the impact of major works (eg expansion of university areas, planting of botanical gardens) on the fauna of social wasps, and we are noting that there is a strong impact, but also a long-term adaptation, in which 60 % of the species return to the areas.
Another line of study is the impact of the Malathion "poison", used aggressively and without control by the government in the control of mosquitoes Aedes spp on the fauna of bees and Social wasps
sorry about my English
thanks for your input - where are your study sites? good luck with your studies, Klaus
More research is not an instrument to plea for no action. Effective action needs good cause-effect relations, but by the time we are 100% sure, the insects are gone. What are good measures to be taken now?
Why discuss the effects of Ivermectin when almost no more cattle is on the pasture and when almost all pastures are turned into mown meadows? Go to Romanian pastures and see how many insects are there. The answer for the causes of insect decline cannot be given without spreaking about low-intensity pastures (which are all forgotten even by conservationists). I do not mean modern sheep pastures which do not solve the problem.
fortunately here in Uruguay we do have grass-fed cattle, but of course treated with Ivermectin. Grasslands look nice and "natural", but locals do report changes in dung turnover. Anyway, my question is: where are the hard data from adequate monitoring studies
Here it is an open-access study that can be interesting to read for those in that discussion.
Article Parallel declines in abundance of insects and insectivorous ...
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