Hard to Miss

Ants once crawled all over these
nasturtiums. Now they're gone,
without any steps taken by me.

Two months ago the NY Times brought attention to a phenomenon that scientists have been observing for years: vanishing insect populations.

a whole insect world might be quietly going missing, a loss of abundance that could alter the planet in unknowable ways....

a [2017] paper by an obscure German entomological society had brought the problem of insect decline into sharp focus. The German study found that, measured simply by weight, the overall abundance of flying insects in German nature reserves had decreased by 75 percent over just 27 years. If you looked at midsummer population peaks, the drop was 82 percent...

the study brought forth exactly the kind of longitudinal data they had been seeking, and it wasn’t specific to just one type of insect. The numbers were stark, indicating a vast impoverishment of an entire insect universe, even in protected areas where insects ought to be under less stress. The speed and scale of the drop were shocking even to entomologists who were already anxious about bees or fireflies or the cleanliness of car windshields.

Santa Cruz Monarch butterfly (Chron photo)

Species extinctions get the headlines, but perhaps more worrisome is defaunation ("the loss of individuals, the loss of abundance, the loss of a place’s absolute animalness"). Insect populations are down more than 75% in places that have been studied, a likely factor in the observed declines in fish, birds, and other animals in the food chain. Some worry that the decline in insects will result in the sudden collapse of eco-systems.

According to the article the primary reason for the "insect apocalypse", unsurprisingly, is man. Herbicides, pesticides, habitat destruction, and climate change have all been posited as causes. While some alarmists are predicting imminent disaster, most responsible scientists acknowledge that we are just at the beginning of understanding the extent and ramifications of the problem.

Meanwhile, we can all mourn the loss of monarch butterflies.