After all, one of the virtues of bird is that they can be used to motivate research into insects. That’s nice. We couldn’t possibly get the general public interested in arthropods when there are charismatic warm-blooded flying things to save.
Juncos are known as seed-eating birds. They spend their days rummaging through the undergrowth searching for fallen seeds. At feeders, they prefer smaller grains, like millet. But seeds don’t provide the protein juncos, or any songbirds, need to grow a new set of feathers while they molt. And the protein this baby junco needs to molt its blotchy juvenile feathers and to grow sleek stone-gray feathers on top and white ones below would come only from bugs. In fact, 90 percent of the more than 10,700 known bird species rely on insects for food during at least part of their life cycle. Even the most dedicated seed-eating songbirds must eat insects and other arthropods, that many-legged group of creatures that includes spiders and millipedes, to produce eggs, to grow new feathers and to feed their young. Without insects, in other words, they wouldn’t survive.
So, yes, we should care about the health of insects because they are bird food, and birds are dependent on insects for protein. That’s why we should care about this next terrifying statistic.
Unfortunately, insects are disappearing at a rate of about 1 to 2 percent a year. And the decline is not limited to just one species nor just one group of insects. The data suggests that the decline is widespread, even global. These findings have been confirmed in hundreds of rigorous, peer-reviewed studies, says David L. Wagner, a University of Connecticut entomologist and the lead scientist of a program known as the Status of Insects, which coordinates pertinent research on insect populations from around the world. “The weight of the evidence is clear,” Wagner says. “I feel like it would stand up in a court of law.”
That 1 to 2 percent is a mean. I think from what I’ve seen here, in this rural agricultural region, is that it is much higher — the population of visible, obvious insects is less than half of what it was when I moved here 25 years ago. Less dense clouds of insects clustered around street lights. Car grills that are no longer choked with splattered bugs. Fewer reports of clouds of mayflies rising off lakes.
I think it’s scary without even considering bird populations. We’re wiping out a key component of the food web here. Do we have to wait for birds to drop out of the sky or bird song to fade from the dawn symphony before we will care?
Besides, as we all know, insects are spider food. Getting the public to care about spiders is probably an even harder sell.
Insects are the base of the food chain for so much fauna – and key pollinators for so much of the flora. They go so horribly under-appreciated and wish more people were aware of their significance.
March 14 is “Save A Spider Day”.
https://www.nonstopcelebrations.com/days/in-march/celebrate-save-a-spider-day-every-march-14/
You can’t even get the public interested in the plight of charismatic insects like butterflies, so good luck with the rest of Arthropoda. I mean, you are never going to get the general public to care about scorpions, no matter how much it is in our interests to do so.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/scorpion-venom-treat-brain-cancer/story?id=5544081
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S096758681630368X
A friend of mine died from glioblastoma multiforme. His doctors were trying to keep him alive long enough to get into one of the trials for chlorotoxin. He didn’t make it. He didn’t live long enough for the human phase of the trial.
FWIW, I always liked spiders because I thought they were pretty and graceful. But even people who will agree that a dewdrop-covered orb weaver web is beautiful still hate the spiders that weave them. Go figure.
The birds will adapt to other sources of protein.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birds_(film)
As you well know, PZ, it’s a this eats that world. And as I understand it, it all hangs together. Perhaps the birds eat the insects, but then the cat eats some of the birds and then some the insects finish the business.
Can’t speak for “the public” but herself has put together a native plant garden for birds and insects, as well as lizards. No pesticides allowed, even for the wasps which are problematic. It’s a little island of healthy flora and fauna in a sea of manicured lawns and roses mown and blown and sprayed on a weekly basis. We’ve got a plethora of insects including several kinds of bee, moths, beetles, and of course, mites and ticks. (I would happily forego the ticks, but they’re part of the package. It’s kind of interesting to see them hanging out at the ends of the tall grasses waiting for something warm to pass by.)
The cat is a fairly recent addition to our menagerie. He adopted us. He gets fed but he preys on the birds and lizards some. Still part of the plan for the garden is to provide ground cover for the birds and though Tiny is crashed out in the garden, we have a couple of coveys of quail that visit now and then.
I noticed that I use a lot less windshield washer fluid in the summer. I wonder if the infamous neonicotinoids are responsible.
Caution: That’s an exponential decline! This means that if the rate has been 2% over the last 25 years, then you’d get a proportion of 0.98^25 ~= 0.60346472977889690850 in comparison with the level 25 years ago, which is probably a number more in line with your observations.
For instance, if the decline was just 5%, then we’d only have a bit more than a quarter after 25 years.
Christmas beetles would be constantly flying into your house and getting into everything when I was a kid. I’m lucky if I see one or two these days
Going into the sea looking for bugs… I just learned that deep-sea arachnomorphs form a symbiosis with methanothrope bacteria.
They hang out near methane seeps, let the bacteria grow on their legs, and then consume them.
Ticks… are they a necessary part of the food web? I know some animals eat them, but they probably eat many other things besides.
I have forgotten the term for it, but there are genes you can insert to spread sterility across a population of organisms. I would like to do this to some destructive parasites.
drdrdrdrdralhazeneuler@7,8–
I don’t think the article makes clear if it’s 1-2% compounding or flat per year, but on the timescale of 25 years it makes little difference. 25 x 2% = 50%. 1 – (1 – 2%)^25 = 40%. Either way is a disaster.
The scariest line of evidence is the huge loss of insect biomass and diversity in a large national park in Costa Rica.
@11. birgerjohansson : Igoogled and found :
Source : https://www.synthego.com/blog/gene-drive-crispr
Also calls it CRISPR-Cas9 presumably not Cas as inshort for the constellationof Cassiopeia..
Hope that helps?
Plus for Salmon :
https://ges.research.ncsu.edu/2021/07/a-sterile-solution-how-crispr-could-protect-wild-salmon/