Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren vogel Bomb here with a classic episode
Speaker 1: from our podcast archives. In this one, we consider research
Speaker 1: into the decline of insect populations around the world and
Speaker 1: what that might mean for the future. Hey there, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vogel Bomb here. When you hear the word armageddon,
Speaker 1: you might imagine a battle thought at the end of
Speaker 1: the world by humans. But it's possible that battle is
Speaker 1: being fought right now. Only all the casualties are bugs.
Speaker 1: Insects are vitally important to the functioning of the world's ecosystems.
Speaker 1: They do most of the plant pollination, after all, while
Speaker 1: providing food for the bulk of the world's birds, amphibians, reptiles,
Speaker 1: and mammals. They're also essential in nutrient cycling, breaking down
Speaker 1: the world's dead stuff, manure, and what have you to
Speaker 1: make more dirt for us to grow our food in.
Speaker 1: Every ecosystem on the planet needs insects, which is why
Speaker 1: the apparent tanking of bug biomass is so alarming. A
Speaker 1: study published in October seventeen in the journal Plos one
Speaker 1: confirms the insect decline that many scientists and insect enthusiasts
Speaker 1: previously suspected, and it turns out their suspicions weren't just validated,
Speaker 1: but surpassed. In Germany, insect biomass is declined by roughly
Speaker 1: seventy percent over a little less than three decades. We
Speaker 1: spoke with co author Casper Hallman of the Institute for
Speaker 1: Water and Wetland Research at Radbound University in the Netherlands.
Speaker 1: In an email, he said declines in insects as a
Speaker 1: group have been suspected for quite some time, indirectly through
Speaker 1: declines in insect vorious birds, but around the globe only
Speaker 1: a few data sets exist to inform us, and these
Speaker 1: data are mainly concentrated around bees, butterflies and moths. Since
Speaker 1: a group of amateur entomologists in Kerfeld, Germany, has been
Speaker 1: collecting all kinds of insects from sixty three German nature
Speaker 1: reserves between spring and autumn each year, following a highly
Speaker 1: standardized sampling protocol. Over the years, realized that the tent
Speaker 1: like traps specially designed to catch flying insects were yielding
Speaker 1: a smaller and smaller catch each year, even though every
Speaker 1: aspect of their sampling regime remained constant. Weighing the total
Speaker 1: biomass of the yearly hall over time allowed them to
Speaker 1: quantify exactly how big a hit these flying insects have
Speaker 1: taken over the decades. They found an overall three quarters
Speaker 1: decline in insects when they looked at the entire collecting season,
Speaker 1: but in high summer, when insect numbers are at their highest,
Speaker 1: the decline was even more noticeable. At These findings are
Speaker 1: of course specific to Germany, and data are very scarce
Speaker 1: for nature preserves in other parts of the world, but
Speaker 1: the drop in insect populations is in no way limited
Speaker 1: to Germany. The study authors speculate that their study locations
Speaker 1: are representative of similar preserves around the world, and study
Speaker 1: published in the journal Science detailed the decline in worldwide populations.
Speaker 1: The reason it's important to compare these data to those
Speaker 1: taken from other protected areas has to do with the
Speaker 1: fact that agricultural or urban areas have relative little to
Speaker 1: offer insects and are often outright toxic to them. Therefore,
Speaker 1: it's tough to note based on data from these areas
Speaker 1: whether insects are doing poorly in other places in the world,
Speaker 1: in habitats where they should be thriving. That said, general
Speaker 1: data sets on butterflies, moths, and most famously bees around
Speaker 1: the world mostly point in the same dismal direction. Additionally,
Speaker 1: the so called windshield phenomenon might not be data driven science,
Speaker 1: but it seems that all over the world in recent
Speaker 1: decades people have been noticing fewer squashed bugs on their
Speaker 1: windshields than ever before. But what could be causing this
Speaker 1: more than decimation of Germany's insects. While the research team
Speaker 1: looked at whether changes in climatic conditions, the landscape or
Speaker 1: the local habitat may have caused the decline, co author
Speaker 1: Hallman says they were unable to explain it based on
Speaker 1: these analyzes. Quote, Our best guests at this point are
Speaker 1: the negative influences of land use surrounding the nature reserves,
Speaker 1: particularly agricultural practices such as extensive use of pesticides and fertilizers,
Speaker 1: as well as over decline in habitats sustainability in between
Speaker 1: the reserves. But the effects of so many fewer insects
Speaker 1: can already be observed in the decline of birds in Germany.
Speaker 1: During the same time period, twelve million pairs of breeding
Speaker 1: birds have disappeared, and the same trend has been observed
Speaker 1: in other parts of Europe. So the next time you
Speaker 1: see a bug in your house, reconsider squashing it and
Speaker 1: maybe just escorted outside. It's kind of having a tough
Speaker 1: thirty years of it. Today's episode was written by Jesselyn
Speaker 1: Shields and produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler. Playing. For
Speaker 1: more than this and lots of other topics, visit how
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