The world has lost more than one-quarter of its land-dwelling insects in the past 30 years, according to researchers whose big picture study of global bug decline paints a disturbing, but more nuanced problem than earlier research.
From bees and other pollinators crucial to the world’s food supply to butterflies that beautify places, the bugs are disappearing at a rate of just under 1 percent per year, with lots of variation from place to place, a study published on Thursday in the journal Science said.
That is a tinier population decline than found by some smaller localized studies, which had triggered fears of a so-called insect apocalypse, but it still adds up to something “awfully alarming,” said entomologist Roel van Klink of the German Centre for Integrative Biology, the study’s lead author.
“The decline across insect orders on land is jaw dropping,” said Michigan State University butterfly expert Nick Haddad, who was not involved in the study. “Ongoing decline on land at this rate will be catastrophic for ecological systems and for humans.”
Coauthor Ann Swengel, a citizen scientist who has tracked butterflies for more than 30 years, recalled that when driving around Wisconsin a few decades ago, she would “look out in a field and you’d see all these Sulphur butterflies around. I can’t think of the last time that I’ve seen that.”
While land bugs were dwindling, freshwater insects, such as mayflies, dragonflies and mosquitoes, are increasing at more than 1 percent per year, the study found.
That is faster than land bugs have been disappearing, but those freshwater insects are a tiny percentage of all bugs.
The improvement, likely because rivers and streams got cleaner, shows hope, scientists said.
Swengel said that she saw another sign of hope last year in Wisconsin when she counted 3,848 monarchs, reflecting local efforts to improve the colorful migrating butterfly’s habitat.
“It was absolutely magnificent,” she said. “It’s not too late.”
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