Entomology news in mass media

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03.11.2017 23:52, CosMosk

http://www.apiworld.ru/1509713370.html

Drastic decline in the number of insects in Germany
user posted image

A group of 12 German, Dutch and British scientists in 2016 investigated changes in the number of winged insects living on the territory of 63 German nature reserves and specially protected areas between 1989 and 2016.

Malez net traps were used to catch insects. The insects caught were weighed, and their mass was compared with the mass of insects caught in 1989.

The results of the study were largely unexpected for its participants. As a result of weighing the collected 1,503 samples, it turned out that the total mass of insects caught in 2016 was on average 76% lower than in 1989, and in mid - summer-by 82%.

In some areas, only 3 grams of insects were trapped per day in 2016, compared to 8 grams in 1990.

Germany, pesticides, bee population reduction, research, Malaise, ecology

According to project manager Hans de Krohn, " such a high rate of decline in the number of insects and over such a large area are extremely worrying symptoms." According to the study participants, a further reduction in the number and species composition of insects can lead to a violation of the ecological balance, a break in the food chains on which the life of birds, mammals and other animals depends.

Among the reasons for the sharp decline in the number of insects in the area of German nature reserves, scientists named their close proximity to agricultural land treated with various pesticides, plowing and degradation of honey-bearing lands, climate change and other factors.

It was also emphasized that in recent years, high mortality of insects, including pollinators, has also been observed in other countries of Western Europe and North America. In the UK, for example, in the near future may completely disappear six of the most common butterfly species. In North America, many species of wild bees are threatened with extinction. Project participant Professor D. Goulson (University of Sussex, UK) recalled in this regard that insects "depend on 3/4 of life on Earth". He also stressed that today humanity is "making vast areas unsuitable for most forms of life", thereby bringing the onset of "ecological armageddon"closer. According to D. Goulson, all this will ultimately lead to the fact that "our grandchildren will inherit an extremely impoverished world."

The results of the study were published in the scientific journal Plos ONE and attracted close attention of the public, environmentalists and German authorities. Their reaction to the scientists ' findings was mixed. German Economy Minister Christian Schmidt criticized the results of the study, calling it pseudoscientific in terms of the key role of pesticides in the death of insects. The Brandenburg Farmers ' Union supported the minister's statement, expressing doubts about the reliability of the data provided in the study. "Agricultural crops such as rapeseed and potatoes, where insecticides are used on a significant scale for objective reasons, do not even occupy five percent of the area in Germany," says Thomas Kiesel, a representative of the Union. "And over the past 25 years, there has been no increase in intensity either in the expansion of the areas occupied for these crops, or in the use of plant protection products."

At the same time, Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks called for a ban on the use of glyphosate and neonicotinoids in agriculture within the framework of the relevant EU agreements. The German Federation for the Environment and Nature called for the development of a "nationwide integrated approach to insect protection".

A. Ponomarev

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More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas
Caspar A. Hallmann , Martin Sorg, Eelke Jongejans, Henk Siepel, Nick Hofland, Heinz Schwan, Werner Stenmans, Andreas Müller, Hubert Sumser, Thomas Hörren, Dave Goulson, Hans de Kroon
Published: October 18, 2017https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185809
plos one

This post was edited by CosMosk - 14.11.2017 20: 59

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10.11.2017 13:35, Penzyak

Scientists found substances dangerous to humans in honey

As it turned out, honey contains pesticides that are dangerous for both humans and the bees themselves. In the case of the latter, scientists noted a global decline in the number-due to all the same chemicals. The authors of the study (which was conducted at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland under the direction of Dr. Edward Mitchell) found dangerous pesticides during the testing of honey delivered for the experiment from every continent except Antarctica. As it turned out, honey contains pesticides that are dangerous for both humans and the bees themselves. In the case of the latter, scientists noted a global decline in the number-due to all the same chemicals. The authors of the study (which was conducted at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland under the direction of Dr. Edward Mitchell) found dangerous pesticides during the testing of honey delivered for the experiment from every continent except Antarctica. In total, almost 200 honey samples were collected. The task of scientists was to check the full composition and impurities of this sweet treat. As a result, it turned out that 75 percent of honey samples contain at least one type of dangerous pesticide – neonicotinoid.
"Of course, if we talk about acute toxicity, it won't kill people, but it can have long - lasting, chronic consequences for everyone," says Dave Goulson, professor of biology at the University of Sussex.
In a summary of their study, the results of which were published in the scientific journal Science, the authors write that the data obtained can be called very disturbing. Although in most cases, the amount of dangerous substances did not exceed the level at which the consumption of this product is safe for people. However, " global biodiversity loss is a concern, and the decline in bee populations is particularly worrisome given their role in pollination, bee losses pose a serious threat to human food security and ecosystem stability. In turn, these losses are associated with the intensive use of pesticides, especially neonicotinoids." Pesticides get into honey through the nectar and pollen of plants that are pollinated to protect the crop from insects. Earlier, Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote that honey can contain pesticides and herbicides, and honey from rhododendron, snowdrop and daffodil can be especially poisonous. Eating this honey can cause nausea, vomiting, itching, or fainting. Also, during the production process, honey can get bacteria that cause intestinal obstruction. For this reason, honey is contraindicated in newborns. Experts examined more than 60 types of honey, a third of which did not pass the test. The examination showed that honey often contains antibiotics and counterfeit products...

https://news.rambler.ru/tech/38085602-med-s...insektitsidami/
https://www.penza.kp.ru/daily/26740/3768692/

And the original article itself:

This post was edited by Penzyak - 10.11.2017 13: 37

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28.02.2018 0:25, ИНО

Do not pay attention: grant-eaters have found another fictitious effect of mythical global warming. Bourgeois environmentalists have long lived almost exclusively on scary tales about it, and now entomologists have begun to catch up. I don't know what the authors of that opus intended and at what temperature, maybe it was close to the upper limit of endurance even before the increase by a degree. Or else they forgot to supplement this increase with an increase in water supply and the poor beetles dried up. Or maybe, in reality, among the huge number of experimental species, they chose the only one that reacted to the heat in such an unusual way, and kept silent about the rest due to political correctness. I don't rule out even a stupid forgery. Among breeders of exotic arthropods, it has long been well known that the higher the temperature is kept, the larger their pets generally grow. Insects and spiders kept in extreme heat for the species often live less and breed worse, but grow up to be just giants, i.e. the effect is diametrically opposite to the one stated in the article.

As for deer beetles, their size is closely related to the size of trees.in which they develop. If beetles are being crushed on your stationary plot for a number of years, pay attention to the state of the forest. Perhaps there are fewer old (more than 200 years old) oaks and more young (less than 100) ones?

02.03.2018 18:02, А.Й.Элез

Deer (as well as many other things) were not bred at home; but a fairly general pattern is obvious: an increase in temperature in nature during the warm season is often accompanied by a decrease in humidity (or even just a drought), while in laboratory conditions, even with an increase in temperature, humidity can be ensured. Therefore, the effect of heat on size in nature and in the laboratory is not the same. Eating a xylophage with natural oak and an oak leg from a chest of drawers is not the same in terms of growth. Within the limits of decreasing humidity, which does not lead to the death of the larva (or pupa) from dehydration, its size decreases. That is why there are years when a certain species (especially one with a preimaginal stage that allows for a lot of dehydration without dying) flies in mass, but in microscopic sizes.

This post was edited by A. J. Elez - 02.03.2018 18: 05

02.03.2018 20:08, ИНО

It seems that in most Russian regions of the deer beetle's habitat, its larvae are not in danger of drying out before grinding. Unless somewhere in the Lower Volga region and south-east, but I'm not sure that there it is at all. Here, because of the dryness, the oak barely survives and barely reproduces, and the deer at least have henna.

About being kept in artificial conditions: just there, humidity control, in contrast to temperature control, is a very non-trivial task. And, most importantly, the humidity must be increased along with the increase in temperature, otherwise the animals will "burn", but do not pour, so as not to drown. And it is almost impossible to turn the natural microclimate and its fluctuations one-on-one. Therefore, the results of such studies are something out of the realm of spherical horses in a vacuum. Speaking of humidity, a hypothetical global warming is bound to lead to a global increase in it, so even adherents of this theory can be calm: beetles do not grind from dryness.

06.03.2018 16:24, Wild Yuri

See the original article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111...IED_NO_CUSTOMER. 7000 specimens of ground beetles of 8 species were analyzed. All of them have a reduction in size. References are given to works on breeding beetles in the laboratory, where the size also decreased with increasing temperature. Yes, it can increase in many insect species when bred in the laboratory - those that have an ecological optimum in the high temperature zone: for example, tropical species. In these ground beetle species, the ecological optimum does not provide for high temperatures, the metabolism increases, and smaller individuals are obtained. With the specified laboratory dilution, the size did not decrease as much as in nature, and the difference can be explained by an anthropogenic factor. In Canada, over the past hundred years, the population has grown by an order of magnitude, biotopes are being trampled, because of this, beetles have less food, as well as themselves-they have to run more in search of it and a sexual partner... Maybe some other factor affects. But I would not deny the influence of temperature.

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06.03.2018 21:02, ИНО

I believe in the" trampling " of biotopes as a factor of population degradation, which can also be manifested by grinding individuals, I believe willingly, but the temperature is clearly far-fetched for the sake of grants to fight global warming by Russian hackers. I kept and bred many local insect species, but none of them, due to the fact that the average annual temperature was not natural at all (not 1-2 degrees higher, but dozens), did not grind. So your theory that temperate species respond to warming in the opposite way than tropical species is interesting, but wrong. There are a huge number of examples of insects with a wide range of different climatic zones, and most of them in the south are either larger than in the north or about the same size. There are also reverse examples, but there are many times fewer of them. Don't waste your mental energy explaining clearly questionable results. So they had 8 types of beetles in the experiment, and all 8 of them had a statistically significant decrease in size after raising the temperature by a degree? Then the forgery is dedected, period. Compared to other forgeries on the topic of scary GP, this is just a child's prank.

This post was edited by ENO-06.03.2018 21: 03

06.03.2018 21:27, Dmitrii Musolin

It's a bit funny and sad to read the latest comments. Hundreds of papers have already been published on the responses of biota, including insects, to climate change. Ecological, physiological, detailed, survey, experimental, by area, historical, with symbionts, any. Not on a tree stump in the country and not at home on a stool." It is already very difficult to publish something not in a home murzilka, but in a decent magazine on this topic, because reviewers meticulously look at everything from the methodology and question statement to the discussion. It seems that only in Russia and its environs there are still unbelieving foms, who, no matter what they show, will all be against it. The problem is that they don't read the work, they don't analyze tables with numbers, but they know in advance that there is no such thing. And the Earth is round, and the climate is changing, and insects are responding to this change. Including-some types - by their size. Well-known laws of eco-physiology: even in the season, polyvoltine species (and not only) can be smaller in the middle of summer and larger by autumn.

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07.03.2018 0:58, ИНО

Separate the flies from the cutlets. Climate change, as well as the biota's response to it, has always been, is, and will continue to be. And work on them in the same way. And that's right. But when there is a pulling of an owl on the globe of global warming, from which almost the entire world's flora and fauna allegedly gets worse every year-this is a completely different story. All the glaciers melted, all the corals died, all the flying foxes got heat stroke, all the polar bears drowned, etc.etc. Now all the beetles were being crushed! What to do? The stump is clear: to reduce CO2 emissions, and those who refuse to be severely punished with "rubles" (apart from the instigators of hysteria, of course). Another new trend has appeared - cow methane, so livestock breeders are also in development. And in order not to let the fire of this hysteria go out (after all, it was announced in the middle of the last century, and until now even Venice will not drown in any way, the horror story can get boring to people), fuel is poured in the form of financing all sorts of projects to study and cover the SOE and its terrible consequences for nature. As a result, for example, hundreds of well-fed photographers are taking time-lapse photos of glacial retreats in various parts of the world, and this is shown on all TV channels day and night. While growing glaciers, if anyone takes pictures, then only at their own expense, or for institute pennies, and the results are fashionable to see only at some "Congress of CIS glaciers in Yakutsk" (the name is fictitious). It is exactly the same in the field of printed publications, at least in the West. Just for the sake of experiment, make up some scary stuff about how hard life has become for all the insects of the Leningrad region due to the unprecedented summer heat of recent years

, how they, poor people, are getting smaller and pale from overheating, and in the introduction - about the state Enterprise with links to the IPCC, and send them to some prestigious European magazine. I am almost sure that they will accept it without any questions or delays, and they will not even look at the weather archive (and if they do, they will "not notice" the inconsistencies).

Tell me honestly: Do you believe in the truth of the story about Russian hackers who hacked the US election, or the McLaren report? But they are also not shouted out in the market square, and published no matter where.

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07.03.2018 21:03, Nemov

.................. Including-some types - by their size. Well-known laws of eco-physiology: even in the season, polyvoltine species (and not only) can be smaller in the middle of summer and larger by autumn.

Here you are once again and showed their complete incompetence, or, if you prefer, cabinet.
They do not "can be", but actually happen to be smaller, and larger, and the same, depending on which species.
Come to ZIN and ask them to show you collections of at least well-known St. Petersburg butterflies, as the most obvious ones. And you will see with the naked eye what any enthusiastic student knows.
For example, in swallowtail and cabbage patch, the 2nd generation is on average larger.
In golubyanka icarus and chervonets unpaired 2nd generation is on average smaller.
And in urticaria and sennitsa pamphila, both generations are approximately the same.
There are examples where generations are the same size but have different colors.
And this is since people collect collections, i.e. in ZIN, probably since the beginning of the 19th century. And no pseudo-global warming-cooling events affect this.

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08.03.2018 12:18, Nemov

).... Apparently, it was you who worked for me for 25 years in experimental eco-physiology, conducting field experiments lasting one and a half years!)

No, I would not allow you to defend your dissertation and continue to exploit this topic based on my results.
Since you are such a big experimenter, probably personally acquainted with outstanding Leningrad ecologists, it is all the more surprising to see your piety in front of the streams of near-scientific writings of all sorts of "British scientists".
Because you should have been taught at St. Petersburg State University that the size of insects depends on temperature only indirectly. You've probably heard about photoperiodic reactions in insects and how they work together with local (not global!) the climate affects their nutrition, growth and care in diapause. From the lowlands of my knowledge, it seems to me that during cold weather, activity and nutrition decrease, but the diapause determined by the photoperiod is inevitable, and the larvae pupate under-fed and small. Hence the shredding of the imago.
But this does not work globally, but at the level of areas with the same current climate, as well as at the level of individual point habitats - some in the shade of the forest and near moisture in relative cold, others in open sand and the sun - in warmth. And as a result, the differences in size will be on the same forest clearing.

This post was edited by Nemov - 08.03.2018 12: 21

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08.03.2018 18:36, ИНО

Connoisseurs of bourgeois names, please shed some light on the question: among the authors of the article on the link Wild Yuri, is there at least one man? Here I looked at other publications of the first author (who, I don't know how in bourgeois traditions, but in our country is usually considered the main one), there is some kind of hodgepodge from different areas of biology, and the title "Evolution in human-altered environments: a summit to translate science into policy" is generally alarming. In addition, according to the abstract, the experiment with beetles involved not 8 species, but as many as 22, and allegedly 95% of them were crushed with a tiny increase in temperature. In general, it remains only to quote Stanislavsky's catchphrase.

This post was edited by ENO-08.03.2018 18: 36

10.03.2018 23:23, Wild Yuri

I'm a little late, I have some business to attend to...

So your theory that temperate species respond to warming in the opposite way than tropical species is interesting, but wrong. There are a huge number of examples of insects with a wide range of different climatic zones, and most of them in the south are either larger than in the north or about the same size.

Please provide these examples. And the speech in the article is that they are getting smaller in the same climate zone.

As a result, for example, hundreds of well-fed photographers are taking time-lapse photographs of glacial retreats in various parts of the world...

During my 27 years in the mountains of Yakutia, I saw a radical decrease and disappearance of glaciers. Am I also well-fed?
In general, find half a day of time and read a lot of scientific materials about global warming on this site: http://sci-dig.ru.