In an interview with English subtitles, the toxicologist Henk Tennekes explains his ideas about the derailment of toxicology. He is of the opinion that the cumulative toxicity of pesticides in the environment is not sufficiently investigated during the authorization procedure and explains the massive insect mortality in recent years.

https://youtu.be/D73HFu-CjZM

We compared the current (2012–2017) abundances of food plants of different groups of flower‐visiting insects to that of 1900–1930 in the canton of Zurich, Switzerland. Comparisons were done separately for different vegetation types, flowering months, and groups of diurnal flower‐visiting insects, such as bees, bumblebees, wasps, butterflies, hoverflies, flies, and beetles. We found a general decrease in food plant abundance for all groups of flower‐visiting insects and in all vegetation types except ruderal areas.

Schistosomiasis is a severe neglected tropical disease caused by trematodes and transmitted by freshwater snails. Snails are known to be highly tolerant to agricultural pesticides. However, little attention has been paid to the ecological consequences of pesticide pollution in areas endemic for schistosomiasis, where people live in close contact with non-sanitized freshwaters.

Many insects, mosses and lichens in the UK are bucking the trend of biodiversity loss, according to a comprehensive analysis of over 5,000 species led by UCL and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH). The researchers say their findings on UK biodiversity between 1970 and 2015, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, may provide evidence that efforts to improve air and water quality could be paying off.

Since the mid-1990s, populations of the common Japanese dragonfly Sympetrum frequens in rice fields have declined severely. Application of systemic insecticides—especially fipronil—to nursery boxes of rice seedlings is suspected to be the main cause of the decline. However, until now there have been insufficient population data to test the causality. We conducted a dragonfly survey from 2009 to 2016 in four prefectures of Japan and compiled the data to enable the comparison of population growth rates along five main census routes over the years.

Two papers about the future of the planet appeared within a month of each other (June/July 2015): "Accelerated modern human-induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction" was the first. The 6 authors calculated the average rate of vertebrate losses over the last century and compared it with the background rate of losses. They estimated it to be up to 114 times the background rate and asserted that this rate of losses of biodiversity indicated that a sixth mass extinction is already under way.

Mayflies, which form swarms in the billions that are visible on weather radar, are in steep decline, mirroring the plight of insects worldwide. Every summer, mayflies burst forth from lakes and rivers, taking to the skies of North America. These insects, which are particularly abundant in the northern Mississippi River Basin and Great Lakes, live in the water as nymphs before transforming into flying adults. They synchronize their emergence to form huge swarms of up to 80 billion individuals—so massive that, in waterside towns, they are sometimes scooped up with snowplows.