Some Regions Of The World Are Seeing Massive Insect Deaths
For the past few years the news has been reporting about sharp declines in the worldwide bee population. According to scientists, a phenomenon referred to as Colony Collapse Disorder is the cause of the mass bee deaths around the world. However, the decrease in bee populations is hardly the only ecological problem on the minds of many scientists today. Lately, the decreasing bee populations is not being discussed much, and bee population numbers are rising. Now, scientists are concerned about a massive decline in insect populations within Western Germany.
During the late eighties, scientists working for the Entomological Society Krefeld installed numerous insect traps within many different nature preserves located throughout western Germany. Entomologists capture these insects and record data concerning population sizes. The captured insects are mainly used for research and during academic instruction. But in recent years, the traps have been catching less and less insects. The total amount of traps that exist in western Germany amount to just over fifteen hundred. According to entomologists, the average weight of insects in the wild has dropped by seventy seven percent between the years of 1989 and 2016. Scientists were also disturbed to find that the average weight of insects caught during the peak of the summer season decreased by an astonishing eighty two percent.
One scientists in charge of collecting and evaluating the insect data, Hans de Kroon, said that a decline in population sizes was expected, but not on such a large scale. He went on to say that insect losses of this magnitude would be more believable if they were collected within an agricultural region, as opposed to a nature preserve. Scientists expected to see a bit of a decline since studies have already shown that European butterflies, honey bees, and certain moth species have been decreasing dramatically.
Do you think that global insect loss is a threat to the existence of humanity?
