Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Trump Sues Wall Street Journal Over Epstein Report, Seeks $10 Billion

3 hours ago

Clovis Unified Mourns Passing of Former Superintendent Terry Bradley

10 hours ago

Clovis At-Risk Missing Person Found Dead in Fresno Canal

10 hours ago

DOJ Asks California Sheriffs for Names of Inmates Who Aren’t Citizens

11 hours ago

Israel Agrees to Allow Syrian Troops Limited Access to Sweida

11 hours ago

Border Patrol Agents Raid a Home Depot in Northern California

12 hours ago

Man Admits to Killing Missing Bass Lake Resident, Madera County Authorities Say

1 day ago

Trump Diagnosed With Vein Condition Causing Leg Swelling, White House Says

1 day ago

US Seeks One-Day Sentence for Police Officer Convicted in Breonna Taylor Case

1 day ago

Manhattan Prosecutor Who Handled Epstein Cases Is Fired

1 day ago
Bye Bye Bugs? Scientists Fear Non-Pest Insects Are Declining
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 7 years ago on
September 23, 2018

Share

OXFORD, Pa. — A staple of summer — swarms of bugs — seems to be a thing of the past. And that’s got scientists worried.

You have total ecosystem collapse if you lose your insects. How much worse can it get than that? If they disappeared, the world would start to rot.”Doug Tallamy, University of Delaware entomologist
Pesky mosquitoes, disease-carrying ticks, crop-munching aphids and cockroaches are doing just fine. But the more beneficial flying insects of summer — native bees, moths, butterflies, ladybugs, lovebugs, mayflies and fireflies — appear to be less abundant.
Scientists think something is amiss, but they can’t be certain: In the past, they didn’t systematically count the population of flying insects, so they can’t make a proper comparison to today. Nevertheless, they’re pretty sure across the globe there are fewer insects that are crucial to as much as 80 percent of what we eat.
Yes, some insects are pests. But they also pollinate plants, are a key link in the food chain and help decompose life.
“You have total ecosystem collapse if you lose your insects. How much worse can it get than that?” said University of Delaware entomologist Doug Tallamy. If they disappeared, “the world would start to rot.”
He noted Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson once called bugs: “The little things that run the world.”
The 89-year-old Wilson recalled that he once frolicked in a “Washington alive with insects, especially butterflies.” Now, “the flying insects are virtually gone.”
It hit home last year when he drove from suburban Boston to Vermont and decided to count how many bugs hit his windshield. The result: A single moth.

The Windshield Test

The un-scientific experiment is called the windshield test. Wilson recommends everyday people do it themselves to see. Baby Boomers will probably notice the difference, Tallamy said.
Several scientists have conducted their own tests with windshields, car grilles and headlights, and most notice few squashed bugs. Researchers are quick to point out that such exercises aren’t good scientific experiments, since they don’t include control groups or make comparisons with past results. (Today’s cars also are more aerodynamic, so bugs are more likely to slip past them and live to buzz about it.)
Still, there are signs of decline. Research has shown dwindling individual species in specific places, including lightning bugs, moths and bumblebees. One study estimated a 14 percent decline in ladybugs in the United States and Canada from 1987 to 2006. University of Florida urban entomologist Philip Koehler said he’s seen a recent decrease in lovebugs — insects that fly connected and coated Florida’s windshields in the 1970s and 1980s. This year, he said, “was kind of disappointing, I thought.”
[tnc-pdf-viewer-iframe file=”https://gvwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/978-1-4020-6047-2_10.pdf” width=”800″ height=”700″ download=”true” print=”true” fullscreen=”true” share=”true” zoom=”true” open=”true” pagenav=”true” logo=”true” find=”true” current_view=”true” rotate=”true” handtool=”true” doc_prop=”true” toggle_menu=”true” language=”en-US” page=”” default_zoom=”auto” pagemode=””] University of Nevada, Reno, researcher Lee Dyer and his colleagues have been looking at insects at the La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica since 1991. There’s a big insect trap sheet under black light that decades ago would be covered with bugs. Now, “there’s no insects on that sheet,” he said.
But there’s not much research looking at all flying insects in big areas.

The Evidence

Last year, a study that found an 82 percent mid-summer decline in the number and weight of bugs captured in traps in 63 nature preserves in Germany compared with 27 years earlier. It was one of the few, if only, broad studies. Scientists say similar comparisons can’t be done elsewhere because similar bug counts weren’t done decades ago.

“We don’t know how much we’re losing if we don’t know how much we have.” — Helen Spafford, University of Hawaii entomologist
“We don’t know how much we’re losing if we don’t know how much we have,” said University of Hawaii entomologist Helen Spafford.
The lack of older data makes it “unclear to what degree we’re experiencing an arthropocalypse,” said University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum. Individual studies aren’t convincing in themselves, “but the sheer accumulated weight of evidence seems to be shifting” to show a problem, she said.
After the German study, countries started asking if they have similar problems, said ecologist Toke Thomas Hoye of Aarhus University in Denmark. He studied flies in a few spots in remote Greenland and noticed an 80 percent drop in numbers since 1996.
“It’s clearly not a German thing,” said University of Connecticut entomologist David Wagner, who has chronicled declines in moth populations in the northeastern United States. “We just need to find out how widespread the phenomenon is.”

The Suspects

Most scientists say lots of factors, not just one, caused the apparent decline in flying insects. Suspects include habitat loss, insecticide use, the killing of native weeds, single-crop agriculture, invasive species, light pollution, highway traffic and climate change.
“It’s death by a thousand cuts, and that’s really bad news,” Wagner said. To Tallamy, two causes stand out: Humans’ war on weeds and vast farmland planted with the same few crops.
Weeds and native plants are what bugs eat and where they live, Tallamy said. Milkweeds, crucial to the beautiful monarch butterfly, are dwindling fast. Manicured lawns in the United States are so prevalent that, added together, they are as big as New England, he said.
Those landscapes are “essentially dead zones,” he said.
Light pollution is another big problem for species such as moths and fireflies, bug experts said. Insects are attracted to brightness, where they become easy prey and expend energy they should be using to get food, Tallamy said.
Jesse Barber of Boise State is in the middle of a study of fireflies and other insects at Grand Teton National Park. He said he notices a distinct connection between light pollution and dwindling populations.
“We’re hitting insects during the day, we’re hitting them at night,” Tallamy said. “We’re hitting them just about everywhere.”
Lawns, light pollution and bug-massacring highway traffic are associated where people congregate. But Danish scientist Hoye found a noticeable drop in muscid flies in Greenland 300 miles (500 kilometers) from civilization. His studies linked declines to warmer temperatures.
Other scientists say human-caused climate change may play a role, albeit small.

Restoring Habitat

Governments are trying to improve the situation. Maryland is in a three-year experiment to see if planting bee-friendly native wildflowers helps.

“The kids I’m teaching right now are going to think that scarce insects are the rule. They’re not realizing that there could be an ecological disaster on the horizon.” David Wagner, University of Connecticut entomologist
University of Maryland entomology researcher Lisa Kuder says the usual close-crop “turf is basically like a desert” that doesn’t attract flying insects. She found an improvement — 70 different species and records for bees — in the areas where flowers are allowed to grow wild and natural alongside roads.
The trouble is that it is so close to roadways that Tallamy fears that the plants become “ecological traps where you’re drawing insects in and they’re all squashed by cars.”
Still, Tallamy remains hopeful. In 2000, he moved into this rural area between Philadelphia and Baltimore and made his 10-acre patch all native plants, creating a playground for bugs. Now he has 861 species of moths and 54 species of breeding birds that feed on insects.
Wagner, of the University of Connecticut, spends his summers teaching middle schoolers in a camp to look for insects, like he did decades ago. They have a hard time finding the cocoons he used to see regularly.
“The kids I’m teaching right now are going to think that scarce insects are the rule,” Wagner said. “They’re not realizing that there could be an ecological disaster on the horizon.”

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

Astronomer CEO, HR Chief on Leave After Coldplay ‘Kiss Cam’ Sparks Scandal

DON'T MISS

Sanger Man Arrested in Child Exploitation Investigation

DON'T MISS

Trump Sues Wall Street Journal Over Epstein Report, Seeks $10 Billion

DON'T MISS

Fresno Man Arrested for Home Invasion, Groping Sleeping Woman

DON'T MISS

Who is the Future US Attorney for Fresno? Two Big Names Say They’re Not Interested

DON'T MISS

Fresno Firefighters Rescue Girl Trapped in Chimney

DON'T MISS

Rubio Says 10 Americans Detained in Venezuela Have Been Released

DON'T MISS

US Firms to Develop Syria Energy Masterplan After Trump Lifts Sanctions

DON'T MISS

More than Severance: Fresno Unified Wants to Give $162K to Nikki Henry to End ‘Dispute’

DON'T MISS

Fresno Police Arrest Man Accused of Chasing, Shooting Victim

UP NEXT

Connie Francis, Whose Ballads Dominated ’60s Pop Music, Dies at 87

UP NEXT

FDA Approves Juul’s Tobacco and Menthol E-Cigarettes

UP NEXT

7.3 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Off Alaska Coast. No Danger to California

UP NEXT

Age Is Just a Number: 80-Year-Old Conquers Death Valley to Mt. Whitney Ultramarathon

UP NEXT

Is US Democracy Threatened? Majority of Californians, Including Republicans, Say Yes

UP NEXT

US Senator Seeks Safety Reforms After Fatal Collision Between Army Helicopter, Regional Jet

UP NEXT

PBS and NPR Mount Last-Ditch Fight to Save Federal Funding

UP NEXT

Elmo’s X Account Gets Hacked, Posts Antisemitic and Racist Messages

UP NEXT

Fire at Boston-Area Senior Living Facility Kills at Least Nine

UP NEXT

Arizona Governor Wants Investigation of Federal Handling of Grand Canyon Fire

Fresno Man Arrested for Home Invasion, Groping Sleeping Woman

3 hours ago

Who is the Future US Attorney for Fresno? Two Big Names Say They’re Not Interested

4 hours ago

Fresno Firefighters Rescue Girl Trapped in Chimney

5 hours ago

Rubio Says 10 Americans Detained in Venezuela Have Been Released

6 hours ago

US Firms to Develop Syria Energy Masterplan After Trump Lifts Sanctions

7 hours ago

More than Severance: Fresno Unified Wants to Give $162K to Nikki Henry to End ‘Dispute’

7 hours ago

Fresno Police Arrest Man Accused of Chasing, Shooting Victim

7 hours ago

What You Need to Know About Trump, Epstein and the MAGA Controversy

7 hours ago

How Many Millions of Dollars Will Fresno Get From Airport Car Rentals?

8 hours ago

DOJ Wants California Jail Data on Noncitizen Inmates. Fresno Sheriff Reviews Request.

8 hours ago

Astronomer CEO, HR Chief on Leave After Coldplay ‘Kiss Cam’ Sparks Scandal

Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and Chief People Officer Kristin Cabot were placed on leave following a viral “kiss cam” moment at a Coldplay conc...

2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Astronomer CEO, HR Chief on Leave After Coldplay ‘Kiss Cam’ Sparks Scandal

2 hours ago

Sanger Man Arrested in Child Exploitation Investigation

President Donald Trump speaks during the White House Faith Office Luncheon at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 14, 2025. (Reuters/Nathan Howard)
3 hours ago

Trump Sues Wall Street Journal Over Epstein Report, Seeks $10 Billion

A Fresno man has been arrested on felony charges after allegedly breaking into a home, groping a sleeping woman, and fleeing with stolen items. (Fresno County SO)
3 hours ago

Fresno Man Arrested for Home Invasion, Groping Sleeping Woman

4 hours ago

Who is the Future US Attorney for Fresno? Two Big Names Say They’re Not Interested

A juvenile girl was rescued early Thursday, July 17, 2025, after becoming trapped inside a chimney at a Fresno home and was hospitalized with minor injuries. (Fresno FD)
5 hours ago

Fresno Firefighters Rescue Girl Trapped in Chimney

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a nuclear cooperation Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing ceremony with Bahrain's Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani (not pictured), at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 16, 2025. (Reuters/Umit Bektas)
6 hours ago

Rubio Says 10 Americans Detained in Venezuela Have Been Released

Men work at a makeshift oil refinery site in Marchmarin town, southern countryside of Idlib, Syria December 16, 2015. (Reuters File)
7 hours ago

US Firms to Develop Syria Energy Masterplan After Trump Lifts Sanctions

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend