Other insects

Agriculture Canada scientist Jeff Skevington, who works with the Canadian National Collection of Insects, says the country has lost a significant amount of its insect biodiversity in recent years based on the results of annual collection samples. That means a lot of the insects at the bottom of our food chain are dying out, which could have an unexpected, but noticeable impact on the lives of humans.

The research, published in the journal Insect Conservation and Diversity, involved taking recordings at four sites across East Anglia, nine times a year over an 11-year period from 2006-2016. Led by Dr Peter Brown of Anglia Ruskin University, who worked alongside Dr Helen Roy of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the research found that the proportion of native ladybirds recorded at the sites (two lime tree sites, one pine tree site and one nettle site) declined from 99.8% in 2006 to 30.7% in 2016.

In his book, Dutch toxicologist Henk Tennekes (2010) makes the case that the contamination of surface water by neonicotinoids is so widespread in the Netherlands (and possibly elsewhere in Europe), that loss of insect biomass on a continental scale is behind many of the widespread declines that are being seen, be they of marsh birds, heath or meadow birds or even coastal species. This suggests that we should be looking at possible links between neonicotinoid insecticides and birds, not on a farm scale, but in the context of whole watersheds and regions.

A new study in The Condor: Ornithological Applications documents the steep decline of a population of endangered Southwestern Willow Flycatchers (Empidonax traillii extimus) over 16 years -- and the change in the sex ratio that has left the birds' future hanging on a dwindling number of males.

Initial assessments that considered these insecticides harmless to aquatic organisms may have led to a relaxation of monitoring efforts, resulting in the worldwide contamination of many aquatic ecosystems with neonicotinoids. The decline of many populations of invertebrates, due mostly to the widespread presence of waterborne residues and the extreme chronic toxicity of neonicotinoids, is affecting the structure and function of aquatic ecosystems. Consequently, vertebrates that depend on insects and other aquatic invertebrates as their sole or main food resource are being affected.

Kiebitze (Vanellus vanellus) gehören zu den absoluten Verlierern, sagt Jutta Over vom Nabu Emsland/Grafschaft Bentheim. Sie sind im Jahr 2017 im Emsland kaum noch zu sehen und stehen wie fast die Hälfte der 140 Brutvogelarten auf der Liste der gefährdeten Arten. Over hat für unsere Redaktion zum heutigen Tag des Artenschutzes eine Liste bedrohter Tiere und Pflanzen im Emsland erstellt. Von den 140 Brutvogelarten im Emsland seien fast die Hälfte auf der Roten Liste Niedersachsens als gefährdet eingestuft, sieben davon sogar vom Erlöschen bedroht.

Historian Heiko Stoff has recently sketched a fascinating controversy in the 1950’s on chemical risk assessment. Two renowned scientists in the Farbstoffkommission (Dye Committee) of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Community), pharmacologist Hermann Druckrey and biochemist (and Nobel Prize winner) Adolf Butenandt, were advocates of a preventive risk approach. Only substances with a reversible mechanism of action and dose-dependent toxicology were acceptable in their eyes because safe exposure concentrations below a threshold of toxicity could be defined.