Vox reader Gunnar Collin wrote: “So are all bugs really disappearing? If so, why does it seem like no one is doing anything about it? Is there anything I can do personally to help the little guys at the very bottom of our ecosystem? I’ve been thinking about it a lot and it seems like something really important.”
Many of the bugs humans encounter—mosquitoes and houseflies, cockroaches and bed bugs—are, in a word, disgusting.
But these loathsome insects represent an almost unimaginably small fraction of the planet’s insect diversity. Scientists have discovered about a million species so far, and they estimate there may be millions more that they have yet to describe.
This incredible diversity of bug life sustains our planet. Insects pollinate our favorite foods, clean up our messes, and even help reduce the number of insects we don’t like. Dragonflies, for example, eat mosquitoes and some fish prey on cockroaches.
That’s why it’s recent title a warning”insects” — the idea that large numbers of insects are disappearing — is very alarming. A world without insects is not what we want to live in.
But are the bugs actually going to disappear? This is a good question, one to consider An ongoing debate Above the actual amount of pest damage.
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To help answer this question, I talked to someone who knows insects better than almost anyone: Scott Hoffman BlackXerces is executive director of the Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit that works to protect insects. He has been with the team for over two decades.
Yes, insects really are disappearing
“Unfortunately, the data is conclusive,” Black told me. “Insects as a whole are now declining. And that’s very worrying.”
Understanding the extent of this decline is a bit more complicated. Many groups of insects, such as flies, have not been thoroughly studied, so there are still many unknowns. Some critters, meanwhile, are thriving in the human-made world. such as disease-carrying mosquitoes Expand into new areas As the climate warms.
But overall, studied populations of insects are declining by about 1 percent to 2 percent each year. Best available researchBlack said. Compounded over two decades, this equates to a 30 percent decline in insect populations.
“I don’t know any insect ecologist who doesn’t agree that insects are in decline,” Black said. “That was a question 10 years ago. It’s not really a question now.”
What caused the decline?
That would be us, the people.
The first problem, Black says, is that we’re gobbling up insect habitats like prairies and forests with our farms, buildings and homes. He’s got something out of that 40 million acres Lawns (bluegrass, mostly) in the United States, which have replaced native habitats.
“Very few animals, insects included,” can survive bluegrass, Black said. “It’s a giant monoculture.”
The all-too-common practice of spraying pesticides only makes the landscape less livable. Globally, we now use More pesticides Black said, from any time in human history, and they are clearly associated with the decline of insects. A recent one StudyFor example, pesticides — and neonicotinoids in particular — have been linked to butterfly declines in the Midwest.
Then you add climate change and its many symptoms—from rising temperatures and droughts to more extreme rainfall and hurricanes—which together could amplify these downward trends.
“It affects us, but it also affects all animals,” Black said.
If bugs bother so many of us, why is losing them a problem?
Arthropods, a group that includes insects, spiders, and crustaceans, consist of roughly half All living things on Earth, by organic matter. There is, for example, an approximation 20 quadrillion Because ants and insects are abundant and everywhere — in streams and lakes, deserts and mountaintops — they are essential parts of every ecosystem.
Scientists speculate about that 90 percent Flowering plants are pollinated by animals, mostly insects. More than a third of our food crops depend on pollinators, including nuts, chocolate and coffee.
Insects also form a large part of the diet of many animals. almost all North American land birds feed their young on vertebrates. “If you like birds, you should thank an insect,” Black said.
Many fish also eat insects, including salmon, he said. “They can’t go to sea unless they eat insects,” Black said. “It goes up the food chain. Think of grizzly bears. They eat salmon, which depend on insects. And their other main food source is berries, which are insect-pollinated. So bears eat almost exclusively insects.
Also worth mentioning: Insects, such as dung beetles, clean up animal feces that would otherwise litter the ground and fill the air with foul odors.
What can people do to help insects?
Conserving insects is not a problem that can be solved by one person alone. City, state, and federal governments play a major role in helping insects, such as by passing laws to limit habitat loss or certain pesticide chemicals. But there’s still a lot that individuals can do, Black said.
Black pointed me to a publication he co-authored titled, “Eight simple steps individuals can take to save insects from global decline” It suggests, among other things, creating habitat for insects by growing more native plants. It could be ripping out part of your lawn, even just 10 percent, or planting a few trees on your city porch.
“We have a member in Germany who has a large garden area on his porch, and he’s getting about a dozen different species of bees,” Black said. “You don’t have to tear up your entire lawn and go native if you don’t want to. Just start.”
Here are some other tips Black shared:
- Avoid using pesticides on your lawn and garden and consider buying organic foods, which use fewer pesticides.
- Think about reducing your climate impact, such as taking fewer flights or eating less meat. “If everyone reduced their meat consumption by 10 or 20 percent, that would be huge from a climate change perspective,” Black said.
- Change your outdoor lights. Switch to motion-activated lighting and choose red or amber lights that face downward. White light is “terrible to insects,” he said. “They are also terrible for migratory birds.”
Relative to other major issues facing our planet and our communities—war, American politics, deadly natural disasters—the decline of insects, rather surprisingly, has not attracted much attention. They are hard to see.
But what’s exciting, Black says, is that during his nearly 25 years of work at Xerces, he’s seen support for insects swell dramatically. “There are millions of people around the world now Gardens for pollinators” he told me. “There is a growing movement.”
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