
75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas - kawera
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809
======
titzer
It's not only a consequence of direct habitat destruction, but also the use of
pesticides. According to
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2946087/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2946087/),
more than a billion pounds of pesticides are used on lawns in the US every
year. There is little regulation there.

All of those pesticides are designed to _kill bugs_. Why are we now surprised
that bugs are disappearing?

We are sterilizing the planet.

According to this
([http://www.beyondpesticides.org/assets/media/documents/lawn/...](http://www.beyondpesticides.org/assets/media/documents/lawn/factsheets/LAWNFACTS&FIGURES_8_05.pdf)),
we use up to 3.5x more pesticides per acre on suburban lawns than on
agriculture.

~~~
mac01021
I don't get it. Who cares if there's bugs in your grass?

I used to play with bugs in the yard as a kid.

~~~
briga
My step-father has this weird obsession with keeping a perfectly flat green
lawn as a front yard. Any time an ant-hill springs up it's out with the
pesticide. Any weeds that pop up are immediately exterminated. It's this sort
of stupidity on a global scale that's causing the problem. For a lot of
middle-class America, a sterile grass mono-culture is the ideal for a front
yard, environmental health be damned.

~~~
surge
Right, if you're that obsessed with perfection, just pave over the damn thing.
I only kill ants if they're building nests that threaten something else, like
a tree. Usually though, that's a good indication the tree is already sick. I'm
nursing one back to health, hopefully, now that had an ant colony at it's
base.

I let moss, and local vegetation that grows fairly small thrive in my yard. In
some ways, I prefer the moss to my grass.

I do fog my yard, so guilty, but I live in area densely populated with
mosquitos which are a problem and they have plenty of wooded areas nearby to
thrive if they want. But yeah, if there was some way to be selective, I'd be
all for it, but it's not worth 20 mosquito bites when I go outside for 30
minutes to keep bees around.

Maybe if I could hire a service to do this:
[http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/07/health/zika-virus-sterile-
mosq...](http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/07/health/zika-virus-sterile-
mosquito/index.html)

Granted I imagine that's not something I could do without having to get EPA or
fish and wildlife approval.

------
avip
Yes. This is a case of hard data confirming what we already know. As in - few
types of butterflies I used to like, and see yearly as a kid - are gone. I see
them now once in 5 years, if lucky. I bring my kids to look because it's a
first time for them.

On the other hand, some types of beetles, ants, flies, mosquitoes, even wasps
- are just new. They were not here 20-30 years ago. Now, what are the
consequences of all that... I kind of feel we'll find out sooner than we'd
like.

~~~
christophilus
This year, I left a portion of my lawn unmowed. I seeded it with a $10 bag of
wildflower seeds. It's given me 4 months of beautiful flowers, loads of
polinators, many butterflies, and it's given me less yard to mow. I now think
that lawns of neatly trimmed grass are about as dumb as it gets.

~~~
rlonn
Yes, a big problem for insects in suburban areas is humans tendency to want
"manicured" nature. Just walk around anywhere in e.g. silicon valley, where
lawns are kept short and there are less than a dozen types of trees and bushes
(also often trimmed) and you'll note there are very few insects, which has
resulted in even fewer types of birds and practically no small animals.
Insects need old, decomposing tree trunks and branches on the ground, and
humans tend to remove those because it isn't tidy enough for them. I share a
vacation house on a small (maybe 5 square km) island in the archipelago of
Stockholm and despite there being houses on almost all of that island, we have
120 different _species_ of birds on it. This is likely a result of a longtime
policy that says house owners should strive to keep old, fallen trees when
possible and avoid tidying up their land too much, and the parts that are
public land are not interfered with much at all.

~~~
nsporillo
A lot of people don't like having insects in their homes, so it would make
sense that they manicure their lawns to reduce the number of insects around
their homes.

~~~
clort
It might, but how far do insects actually travel? If it was really restricted
like that then it would surely be better to concrete over the yard and park
their cars there.

I've seen various flying insects _more_ than a hundred miles out to sea but I
accept that not all insects fly.

------
crispinb
Results like this are some confirmation of what everyone not entirely swaddled
in the virtual worlds of city and business is already entirely aware of: that
our living planet is dying. All the people I know who have lived in rural
areas for decades (in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and SE. Asia)
are in no doubt that their local ecologies are collapsing, and that the
collapse is accelerating.

I'm not sure how useful the knowledge is at this late stage. Turning things
around would require changes of a pace and scale that we have no idea how to
motivate and coordinate. Fork and done, I reckon.

~~~
phil248
" Turning things around would require changes of a pace and scale that we have
no idea how to motivate and coordinate."

Things like electricity, the automobile, air travel and the internet went from
nonexistent to universal in developed countries in phenomenally short time
spans. Renewable energy appears to be following a similar trajectory, leaving
all the estimates in the dust and emerging faster than most people realize or
can keep track of. Fast enough? Well, we'll find out. But at this point you
can't say it's slow.

~~~
crispinb
Two problems with that.

Firstly: climate change is only one of the problems caused by a culture based
almost entirely on the ecocidal fantasy of stolen-from-the-future 'economic
growth'. We are losing topsoil at a dizzying pace. Fresh water is
disappearing. The habitats on which natural systems depend are being ripped
apart. Novel substances are being created and released into our air, water and
land with unknown consequences. Climate change is a single crisis piled upon
multiple others. Case in point: Australia's Queensland inner reefs are almost
completely gone, and the outer reefs have only a few decades left. Causes:
multiple, from nutrient-rich agricultural runoff (largely from pointless
vanity sugar cane production), to wholesale destruction of coastal ecosystems
including mangroves, which are crucial nurseries for many reef fish.
Increasing ocean temperatures deal the final blow to already critically
weakened ecosystems. This is our planet in miniature. Climate change isn't
_the_ problem. It's yet another symptom of the same fundamental dynamic,
delivered as just the latest and largest of a series of blows many ecosystems
will not survive.

Secondly: the changes needed are not only (and perhaps not primarily)
technological. They require planetary coordination and cooperation to handle
on political and social levels, and the defeat of a crazed unthinking ideology
of unhindered 'economic growth'. Fundamental changes of attitude and societal
organisation need to be agreed upon in the next few decades, and implemented
without delay. Yet we can't even agree on obvious tiny measures like removing
nuclear weapons, and rogue wealthy nations resist nearly every attempt to do
anything meaningful about any of the critical issues. We just don't know how
to do what's needed, and there are no solutions on the horizon. And we are
still locked into fantasies of national government and sovereignty, despite
being (factually & physically) a global civilisation.

Look at the political convulsions happening now as a consequence of current
worldwide refugee crises. But that's _minuscule_ compared to what's coming.
Imagine what happens when ocean level rises cause two billion refugees to seek
somewhere to live. Given our level of global immaturity, what do you think
will happen? It will be all wars and walls. And our capability, in the midst
of such convulsions, to make (and keep) difficult international agreements?
Nil.

I'd absolutely love to be wrong. But all physical and social indicators are
pointing in the same direction.

~~~
anigbrowl
So start doing something. What have you got to lose if you're already doomed?
Get yourself a copy of _Deep Green resistance_ and join an aboveground
affiliate group. It's easy to manufacture excuses not to do something because
it looks impossible. So what? Better than saying you sat there and did nothing
and watched it all disintegrate.

~~~
usrusr
Cutting down our per head footprint is nice and laudable, but it's really just
a minor tweak to the "O" in an exponential "Big Oh".

I suspect that crispinb deems something much more paradigmatic necessary than
just a bit of reprorization in economic policies and everybody using less
plastic bags. Some paradigm shifts are so big that it is very difficult to
even think about them loudly without getting universally shunned.

What if, for example, you are convinced that for long term planetary survival
(on a level that can support the human species), individualistic basic human
rights will have to occasionally take a second place? That's what tyranny is
made of, but that's also what desperate measures are made of. You won't win
any popularity contests with that...

~~~
anigbrowl
No disagreement on any of that. I don't want to scare people off with
inflammatory suggestions (which is why I suggest aboveground activism rather
than taking up pipeline sabotage, but I am absolutely for paradigmatic change
despite the inevitability of violent opposition.

------
carbonmachine
Being an earth dwelling human, this seems pretty bad. Aside from buying ammo
or survival rations, what's something proactive that I can do? Is there an
organization that is trying to rid the world of pesticides (assuming that's
the cause)? If I opt to call my representatives, what am I calling in support
of/against?

Over the last year, reading the news had made me more passive and worried. I
want to dedicate a slice of time to doing something to solve the problem, but
I'm not certain if there's anything pragmatic to be done against big areas of
environmental concern like this, global warming, ocean acidity, and etc.

~~~
beambot
> I want to dedicate a slice of time to doing something to solve the problem

Eat less meat (huge environmental impact!), bike more, don't consume as much
non-local food, etc.

~~~
eksu
I wanted to tack on here that even our agriculture has a huge environmental
impact — nothing worse for biodiversity than how we’ve replaced animal
habitats with fields of a single crop! And then pesticides etc.

I don’t know if it ever happen, but we really should support capture
fisheries, fish farms, and captured game.

Properly Managed Captured Fisheries (Mostly more prosperous nations have well
managed fisheries, outstanding fisheries would be in Alaska & New Zealand)
allow us to extract protien we all need without destroying ecosystems. Same
goes for captured game but that scales significantly worse.

Fish farms are in a unique position because unlike farming animals on land, it
can be done without radically changing the part of the ocean the fish are
farmed in.

I think recently there have been some problems with fish farms and antibiotic
/ illness spreading but I really think these can be overcome and that long
term aquaculture would be the most environmentally conscious option. (In a
similar position to electric cars today).

~~~
devmunchies
> _we really should support capture fisheries, fish farms, and captured game_

I guess if you HAVE to eat meat that is a better option, but we don't need it
anymore. Its such an inefficient way to get calories and its not as nutritious
as plant substitutes.

~~~
jm2721
Are you serious? Most of the plant substitutes for meat are based off
nutrient-devoid grains, soy, and corn. It's also not at all an inefficient way
to get calories; fat packs the most calories per gram, and fat (especially
saturated fat) is not easily available in plants unless you're making a
concerted effort to eat avocados, olives, and coconuts. I'd rather eat a fatty
steak and be satiated for hours, than have the same calories from quinoa (or
some other 'healthy' grain) and be ravenous 2 hours later when my insulin
levels drop.

------
aklemm
Presumably this is similar here in the U.S.? In the 80's and 90's the fronts
of our cars would get so encrusted with mashed bugs that it would take real
scrubbing to get them off. I haven't had to do that in many years.

~~~
xattt
I have heard this before. I’m not a climate change denier. Could it have
anything to do with more aerodynamic car designs?

~~~
lostapathy
I drive a jeep (basically a brick on wheels) and bugs are still awful.

~~~
xattt
The reason I asked this question was because I drive a Nissan Cube.

~~~
memeographer
Do you see a lot of bugs?

~~~
xattt
Yes.

------
jpm_sd
This is pretty alarming and suggests that soaking agricultural land in
insecticides might be having some far-reaching side effects.

~~~
DoodleBuggy
Well, the intention of insecticides is to kill insects. All insects.

It's working, but perhaps a little too well?

~~~
lightbyte
The intention of insecticides is to kill the insects that prey on specific
crops, not to kill every single insect there is. It's working better than they
thought, causing it to have unintended consequences.

------
nickbauman
I live in Minneapolis. The city fumigates regularly in the summer by aircraft
and ground-based methods both, which is why I can go running around the lakes
in mid July and get maybe _one_ mosquito bite. I think most US cities are like
this.

It's a policy that should be scrapped in spite of the risk of West Nile and
Lyme Disease.

~~~
peacetreefrog
They're not fumigating, they're spreading a bacteria that kills (only
supposedly) mosquito larva.

[http://www.mmcd.org/mosquito-control/larva-
control/](http://www.mmcd.org/mosquito-control/larva-control/)

~~~
nickbauman
So that's what they're doing? Are you sure that's all?

------
novaleaf
Not about insects, but birds:

In the Pacific Northwest, on the coast of Olympic National Park, (Ruby Beach,
Kalaloch, etc) 30 years ago (when I was a kid) the beaches were teaming with
seagulls. On a given day you would see hundreds.

The last two years I've taken my own kids there, we are lucky to see even 1
seagull each day.

Maybe it's something else, heck maybe there was an open garbage pit 30 years
ago and it's since been closed, but as discussed, most of these ecological
changes (even human caused) are too slow for individual humans to detect.

So thought I'd share my own anecdote :P

------
GlenTheMachine
What are the odds that honey bee colony collapse disorder isn't confined to
just honey bees?

------
phkahler
Too bad it wasn't the mosquitoes. Now when people shoot down ideas to
eradicate them because "what about the species that eat them" I can just point
out this 75 percent reduction in other flying insects...

~~~
daemin
I seem to recall that there are no actual species found that eat purely
mosquitoes.

------
DanielleMolloy
This kind of data should be collected on multiple places in the world. Given
such findings we should thoroughly watch our ecosystems.

I have been in Japan during summer this year and (gotten used to the central-
European ecosystems where the data for this paper has been collected) was
surprised by the amount of insects and especially butterflies, which I had
rarely seen for years. Is this just the climate (which also grows some giant
insects) or could there be something different at play?

------
stonewhite
Just today we were discussing how there was almost zero insects splatters on
the windshield or bonnet after an intercity travel. I remember it would get
very dirty, at least almost always needed a wash.

~~~
paganel
> zero insects splatters on the windshield or bonnet after an intercity
> travel.

Still happens for me in Romania. In fact, I've just noticed it today after an
8-hour trip in my car through half of the country. Could be caused by the fact
that we're not that "advanced" when it comes to use of insecticides.

------
wazoox
My feeling: brace for systemic collapse.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Depends on how widely you define system. So far in all previous mass
extinctions the system resets to a new normal and repopulates the various gaps
with new choices. The cynic in me would imagine the 'system' is working to
kill off humanity so that it can re-balance.

~~~
musage
> _We will arrive at a moment of sufficent self-alienation where we can
> contemplate our own destruction [as a species] as in a static spectacle._

\-- Walter Benjamin

------
notadoc
It's almost as if widespread use of pesticides is having a widespread effect
on insects

------
gilbetron
The company I work for has a big portion of it's land devoted to nature
meadow, and it is amazing how much more insects you see and hear, and I find
it 9000x prettier than grass. We're letting most of our lawn at home get
overtaken by a clover-like plant called Germander. People call it "lawn
cancer", but I like it better than grass. More life in it, it gets pretty
purple flowers in the spring, and it is hardy as hell.

My wife hates spiders in the house, but I love them - they take care of all
the other critters I hate more, and they are interesting little buggers,
especially the jumping spiders and wolf spiders.

~~~
miceeatnicerice
Our flat is the same - I enjoy letting the mould grow on the wall, in its
pretty, grey shapes. And every Summer, as the world turns in its natural
course, there's the seasonal infestation of fruit flies around the bin.
Nature's lovely.

Maybe our romantic adoration could be rediscovered if we admitted more things
as being 'natural'? People, too, provide a kind of undergrowth, and their
greater structures form some very fetching accretions.

~~~
gilbetron
Hyperbole, the first resort of trolls.

------
rb666
And in the meantime here we are, spending 200 kWh in energy per Bitcoin
transaction.

Planet is doomed :(

~~~
keymone
why would you single out bitcoin? did you do any calculations as to how much
material and human resources are spent^Wwasted maintaining fiat systems around
the world? there are whole industries around designing, printing, securing and
transporting money. banks, financial institutions, government institutions.
all of that would be 90% obsolete if we switched to cryptocurrencies.

bitcoin is literally drop in the bucket.

------
giardini
This study appears to be an alarmist rehash of what was previously discussed
on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14323533](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14323533)

Here's one of the original papers:
[https://www.farmlandbirds.net/sites/default/files/Orbrioch%2...](https://www.farmlandbirds.net/sites/default/files/Orbrioch%20Nature%20reserve.pdf)

The 75% decline number appears to be from two data points from a 220-acre
plot. From that paper:

 _" What follows is a description of measured Insect-Biomasses from samples
collected in the Orbroich Bruch Nature Reserve, near Krefeld, using Malaise
Insect Traps. The results show that, in the same two areas, sampled in the
years 1989 and 2013, there was a dramatic fall in the number of flying
insects. Using the same traps, in the same areas, significant reductions of
insect populations, of more than 75%, were found. Our data confirms, that in
the areas studied, less than 25% of the original number of flying insects
collected in 1989, were still present in 2013."_

 _" The Orboicher Bruch, to the Northwest of Krefeld, is a designated Nature
Reserve of around 100 hectares (220 acres). Due to the reserve’s relatively
remote location and its rugged landscape, intensive farming came to the area
only recently."_

So alarmists are extrapolating from two data points (years 1989 and 2013) for
a 220-hectare plot of German farmland to the entire world. I think that is a
bit of a stretch, even for statistics.

since different bugs breed in different seasons, and numbers depend on the
fruitfulness of previous generations, food supply, predation, disease,
temperature and so on, this bug weight could vary considerably from year to
year (or site to site) for any number of reasons. While one year cicadas
thrive, the next year there may be none. Shocking, simply shocking!

BTW they're measuring the _weight_ of dead bugs - not how many bugs or what
species of bugs - just the weight of bugs. Actually they're not even measuring
that, they're measuring the weight of dead bugs' soaked in 70-80% alcohol.

I could go on and on about controls in statistical experiments but I think you
get the idea.

See the original HN posting for discussions pointers to the earlier papers.

~~~
wazoox
To people that were driving 20 years ago and are now, it was pretty obvious
without any statistics that something was wrong, for several years now. 25
years ago, I couldn't drive 500 km in summer without scraping off a thick
crust of dead bugs on my windshield afterwards (it was even common to stop
just for that). In the past few years, I've driven thousands of km across
Europe in summer with barely a dead bug on my windows.

~~~
arekkas
I made a road trip this year from Germany to France to Spain to Gibraltar and
back (~8.000 km) and had at most one or two bugs on the windshields every
couple of days. I am 28 and thought this is normal, but it's so obvious that
it isn't.

------
briantakita
Tech like Permaculture & Regenerative Agriculture utilize ecosystems & food
webs to manage pests. Better to design natural processes to create more food
than to manage natural processes by destroying them.

There's a saying, "You don't have a bug problem, you have a lack of (insert
appropriate bug predator here) problem."

------
Gnarl
[https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/electronic-...](https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/electronic-
smog-is-disrupting-nature-on-a-massive-scale-921711.html)

[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/15368378.2015.104...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/15368378.2015.1043557)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22367734](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22367734)

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1383571806...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1383571806003202)

------
vermontdevil
I’ve noticed a lot less bug splatter on windshields when I go on a long trip
in the Midwest. Inm sure there’s research in this but I’m in a restaurant
right now waiting for my group.

It has to be disconterning to see these kind of changes.

Edited: there’s more with linked articles elsewhere in the thread that I just
saw.

------
navigator01
I dislike most insects. So long as this doesn't impact humanity's ability to
thrive on the planet I don't mind. Since we're doing just fine in the face of
such significant losses in biomass I don't really worry.

------
atiffany
I might be missing something here, but we’re only talking about measurments in
Germany, right? It seems like there’s some conclusion-jumping in the comments
that this is happening globally (whether or not it actually is).

~~~
_rpd
> only talking about measurements in Germany, right?

Yes ...

> total insect biomass using Malaise traps, deployed over 27 years in 63
> nature protection areas in Germany

------
srcmap
I went to Disney World/NASA space center in Orlando a few years back.

One impression I got was: For a place with some many water around, there were
no mosquito and extremely quiet- no bird noise and no cricket noise at all.

------
interfixus
It's pot-boilerish, a good deal of the science (i.e. _why_ the insects
disappear) is bonkers, and the author's reputation is somewhat tarnished these
days, but oh boy did it make an impression: I read Charles Pellegrino's _Dust_
almost twenty years ago, and this talk of insect die-off still brings the
terrifying plot to the front of my mind.

Also, for a 1998 novel, it had a pretty decent future scenario of people
somewhere around _now_ using all-powerfull 'pads' for their web and mail and
video chats and general computing.

------
arethuza
We move at the start of the year to a house in the country here in Scotland
that is pretty much surrounded by farmland and I've been amazed at the amount
of insect life in our garden - particularly the amount of bees and
butterflies.

However, because the area round us is rather hilly it is all low intensity
cattle and sheep rearing. It's probably at least 15 kms (mostly over sea) to
the nearest arable farming - who are presumably the heaviest users of
insecticides.

~~~
samastur
Sounds lovely, but what is the net connection like? (asking as someone who
needs it for work)

~~~
arethuza
20Mbps - which isn't nearly as fast as what we had in central Edinburgh but
fast enough for my work and Netflix/iPlayer etc.

Mind you finding a house we liked with a decent internet connection was _very_
difficult.

[Weirdly we did find a house in rural Perthshire that had 450Mbps - full BT
FTTP - but we didn't like the house!]

------
abacate
Which is one of the reasons I don't understand a few "pro-science" folks that
go against organic by equating things like anti-vaxxers to people that believe
sustainable and organic farming are better for our health and for the planet
as a whole.

Sure, people defend all kinds of things with stupid arguments, but just
because stupid arguments may be used to argue for something doesn't mean that
other arguments are not correct.

------
Roritharr
I'm extremely unqualified, but is it possible that the insects just learned to
avoid the specific traps used to do the measurements over time?

~~~
frinxor
I was thinking the same, but its unlikely to lead to a 75% decline. The ratio
of trapped insects (or insects that even get within a few meters of the traps)
to total insects must be incredibly incredibly small.

------
contingencies
I went down the Mekong River from China to Thailand in about 2006 and there
were thousands of insects that would flock to the boat when it moored
overnight. I repeated the trip in early 2016 and there were almost none.
Deforestation and the replacement of virgin forest with rubber plantations
appeared to be the main factor, but at a guess the use of pesticides was
probably also to blame.

------
ainiriand
When I was a kid I used to play with ladybugs that where almost everywhere.
Not anymore. Now the only thing that I see are spiders and wasps.

------
sparrish
We are not having this problem in Colorado, USA. We've got so many butterflies
this year, they're showing up on weather radar.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/butterflies-appear-on-
weather...](http://www.businessinsider.com/butterflies-appear-on-weather-
radar-in-denver-2017-10)

------
zghst
We need to do a better job as humans of respecting and embracing the
ecosystems around us.

------
keymone
this thread is full of doom and gloom.

is there really no non-apocalyptic perspective on this? consider: any other
"apex" predator in history never stopped to research and ponder on effects of
him demolishing the ecosystem.

the fact that this makes rounds in media and grabs attention and creates
social pressure gives at least a glimmer of hope that something will be done
about it.

if it's not too late.

------
asquabventured
Edit: I see the study was conducted in Germany, but it has me wondering about
the U.S. where I have (anecdotally) noticed a large decline as well.

Are there large enough areas of the country that you could control for areas
that don't spray for mosquitos to see if the populations have also declined in
those areas?

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that the spraying over the last 10
years to control the mosquito population due to the media induced West Nile
panic followed by zika panic has contributed to this.

~~~
iaw
My understanding is that mosquito's make up a very small amount of the total
insect biomass (happy to be corrected).

I'm wondering if there aren't environmental factors like the rise of plastics
or other chemicals in the environment that are slowly degrading insect
populations.

------
Gravityloss
Well, it's not worth doing anything now. We can engineer them out of diamonds
with boutique DNA later. Or something.

------
NicoJuicy
Not sure, I have been wondering ( Europe) why new bugs appear that I have
never noticed before. Butterflies are less also

~~~
avip
Either due to warming (pine beetle being the poster child of that), or
invasive species (Asian tiger mosquito).

------
evanslify
Seems like the site would freeze the entire browser on Firefox 57.0b9 in macOS
10.12.

------
katastic
Everyone is chiming in with anecdotes. Maybe they're all correct.

But I definitely remember fireflies being everywhere at my parents house and
turning the sky into a shimmering display... and I rarely see more then a few
fireflies at all these days.

~~~
jonathankoren
Same. I don't know if it's the pesticides on the farm fields by my parents'
house, or what. There used to be swarms of them, maybe 2-3 feet in diameter.
Now just a hand full. It's been like that for over 20 years.

Same with gnats, but I don't get nostalgic about those.

------
Boothroid
Monsanto.

------
leephillips
If this holds up, this would seem to be a hugely important result. I'm waiting
for HN's biologists to weigh in.

~~~
Daishiman
HN biologists are likely to be far less qualified than the authors of this
paper.

This is not the only study detailing this observation; several have been
floating around for the past few years.

------
cjensen
That's alarming, but it needs followup. There have been rather obvious changes
in Europe since the end of Iron Curtain. Would be nice to see similar data for
other continents.

------
ryanx435
All this pessismism in this thread, acting like everyone on the planet has a
terminal illness.

Lol. Go outside. Read about the success of the endangered species program.
Stop living in fear

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opilionesman
I think I might have found a way to reverse this at the local level in an
individual yard. The problem is that is illegal and I was basically told that
I was a scumbag for doing this. You can read more about my native yard
experiment here: [http://opilionesman.blogspot.ca/2017/05/i-wanted-to-share-
so...](http://opilionesman.blogspot.ca/2017/05/i-wanted-to-share-some-things-
that-i.html)

