English

There are multiple ways that plants in urban landscapes can contain imidacloprid-contaminated nectar, since it is commonly applied in the landscape for many pests and many greenhouse plants are treated with prior to sale and transplanting. Imidacloprid may persist in nectar for a long time, since soil applications were effective against foliar pests for 1 to 2 years in containers and landscape trees. Injections of concentrated volumes of imidacloprid applied to trees trunks and roots were effective for 12 months for ash and linden. A soil application of imidacloprid to Eucalyptus tree resulted in 500 ppb in nectar and pollen, which will kill any insect feeding on nectar and pollen. Tree injections of imidacloprid at flowering are cause for concern, since linden flowers are a good source of nectar and pollen for bees, butterflies, and other beneficial insects.

Nearly all shade trees and many shrubs are subject to borer attack, the tunneling of immature beetle or moth larvae through the cambium, sapwood or heartwood of the host plant. The emerald ash borer is now one of the most destructive non-native insects in the United States. The potential damage of this insect rivals that of Chestnut blight and Dutch Elm Disease. Since its accidental introduction into the United States and Canada in the 1990s, and its subsequent detection in 2002, it has spread to 14 states and adjacent parts of Canada. It has killed at least 50 to 100 million ash trees so far and threatens to kill most of the 7.5 billion ash trees throughout North America. Traditionally, borers have been treated with a trunk spray application of insecticide that kills the newly hatched insects before they tunnel into the plant. However, imidacloprid, a systemic insecticide that is applied as a soil drench around the base of target plants, is making borer control easier and targeting the small larva as they chew their way into the plant. It has a twelve-month residual effect. The chemical is absorbed by the plant's root system and moved throughout it's trunk, branches and foliage.

Soil injections of imidacloprid are effective at preventing attack by the walnut twig beetle, a very aggressive beetle that will attack both healthy and stressed trees. Imidacloprid can also be injected directly into the trunk or soil so there is no public contact. Soil injections of imidacloprid are also very effective against Elm leaf beetles, a cyclic pest, European elm scale, one of the most widespread and destructive scale insects, Hawthorn mealybug and Kermes scale, which affects pin oak and red oak trees.

The past 20 years has seen a perilous decline of an already tiny English hen harrier Circus cyaneus population, to leave it barely clinging to existence in England. A 2011 joint survey of the English uplands by the RSPB and Natural England found that only four nesting pairs of hen harrier had successfully raised young. This is believed to be the lowest population in England since they recolonised in the 1960s following extinction in the late 19th Century. A 2010 hen harrier survey recorded an estimated 646 pairs of hen harriers nesting in the UK and the Isle of Man, down from an estimated 806 pairs in 2004.

Numbers and distribution of Northern Lapwings breeding in Switzerland have undergone strong fluctuations over the last 150 years. In the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century a decline to about 180 breeding pairs was noted. In the 1940s numbers started to increase again, when Lapwings began to nest on arable land. In the 1970s the population reached a peak with 1000 breeding pairs. In the 1980s a decline was observed again, which accelerated since the 1990s. In the most recent survey 2005–2008 only about 100 pairs (83–116) were found. This amounts to a decline of 78 % since the last national survey 1993–1996, carried out for the national distribution atlas. The number of 100 km2 squares occupied by Lapwings declined from 20.1 % to 6.6 % in the same period. In several regions Lapwings have completely disappeared. The decline was strongest in agricultural areas.

For almost 60 years the Baden-Württemberg forestry administration has been documenting the results of its nestbox monitoring scheme. The number of boxes rose from 40,000 around 1950 to 180,000 in the 1980s/1990s. For this study, 80,412 successful nests of the Tree Sparrow Passer montanus were evaluated out of the 3,4 million nestboxes monitored up to 1996. Since the Tree Sparrows in this survey mostly breed at woodland edges, but forage almost exclusively in agricultural land, the results reflect the general trend for the species in SW Germany. Until 1971 the species bred with constant occupancy rates that varied regionally between 0.5 and 5 % of all nestboxes. After that year the proportion increased, reaching rates of 15 % in the Rhine Valley and regionally of more than 30 %. After 1980 the nestbox population collapsed; the drop in the intensively cultivated Rhine Valley was from 15 % to 2 %. The increase in the 1970s is thought to have resulted from the prohibition of DDT. The permanent and continuing decline since 1980 indicates that developments in agriculture have been responsible for the later long-term negative population trend. Areas of intensive agriculture below an altitude of 200 m show the highest rates of decline.

The British public has helped scientists uncover what looks like a substantial decline in one of the UK's most common bumblebees over the last 20 years. By gathering valuable information about the insects, citizen scientists from across Britain have shown that the common carder-bee made up less than 10 per cent of bumblebee colonies from 2007 to 2009. Just 20 years previously, they made up a whopping 21 per cent. This is the first time anyone has shown that one of the UK's big six common bumblebees may be in decline. 'There seems to be a clear shift in how common different species in the UK are,' says Dr Gillian Lye from the University of Stirling, lead author of the study, published in the Journal of Insect Conservation. Professor Dave Goulson from the University of Stirling and Lye came up with the idea of getting enthusiastic members of the public to help them get to grips with bumblebee nesting ecology when they realised they could get a lot more information than they could on their own. 'People tend to spend quite a lot of time in their gardens, so spotting bumblebees and following them to their nests is a real possibility,' says Goulson. In this latest study, Goulson, Lye and colleagues asked members of the public to send information about which species they saw and what type of nest the bees used to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. They encouraged people to send photographs, so that Lye could confirm the species. In total, over a thousand people sent information about the nests in their gardens.

Turtle Doves (Streptopelia turtur) are now the UK’s most threatened farmland bird, according to official figures. Turtle Dove populations fell by 21% between 2009 and 2010. Numbers have been falling since the 1970s, and it is now estimated there are only seven Turtle Doves for every 100 there were in 1970; a decline even greater than other struggling farmland species such as Tree Sparrows Passer montanus and Corn Buntings Miliaria calandra. As well as Turtle Doves, other farmland species whose decline are causing concern for conservationists include Common Starlings Sturnus vulgaris, Yellow Wagtails Motacilla flava, Lapwings Vanellus vanellus and Greenfinches Carduelis chloris. Greenfinch numbers are falling due to the disease trichomoniasis.