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Damselfly populations are being harmed by insecticides as researchers find the wildlife scourge of neonicotinoids continues to grow. Some chemicals in this group have already been banned by the EU but thiacloprid is still in widespread use. Similar chemicals in the neonicotinoid family have already been tied to severe decline in bee populations and now it appears the damage is more widespread.

Adolescents exposed to elevated levels of pesticides are at an increased risk of depression, according to a new study led by Jose R. Suarez-Lopez, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health at University of California San Diego School of Medicine. The study was published online (ahead of print) in June 2019 in the journal International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health.

The North American Bird Conservation Initiative in Canada released the second State of Canada’s Birds report last week. The report, a joint project of Environment Canada and numerous government and conservation organizations, looks at the status of Canada’s bird populations going back to 1970.The study found that shorebirds, grassland birds, and aerial insectivores were in rapid decline across Canada, with numbers down 40, 57, and 59 per cent since 1970.

Cambodia's population of Bengal Florican (Houbaropsis bengalensis) has sharply declined since 2012 according to a recent survey conducted by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Cambodia's Ministry of Environment.

Beekeepers across the US lost four in 10 of their honeybee colonies over the past year, as the worst winter on record for tracked bee populations raised fresh concerns over the plight of the crucial pollinators. Over the past winter, 37% of honeybee colonies were lost to beekeepers, the worst winter decline recorded in the 13-year history of a nationwide survey aimed at charting bees’ fortunes. Overall, 40% of colonies died off over the entire year to April, which is above the 38% average since the survey began.

Humans have caused almost 600 plant species to be wiped from existence over the past 250 years in a long term trend which scientists have described as an “unprecedented” rate of decline. An analysis of all plant extinction records documented from across the world by scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Stockholm University found 571 known plant species had completely disappeared from the wild since the industrial revolution. This is more than twice the number of birds, mammals and amphibians which have become extinct over the same period combined.

The Western honeybee, Apis mellifera, is the most important managed pollinator globally and has recently experienced unsustainably high colony losses. Synergistic interactions among stressors are believed to be primarily responsible. However, despite clear evidence of strong effect on honeybee longevity of widely-employed neonicotinoid insecticides and of the ubiquitous ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor, no data exist to show synergistic effects between these two stressors.

We assessed the community-level effects of clothianidin-treated seed on the diversity and abundance of arthropod communities in a no-till corn agroecosystem over a single growing season.Epigeal and foliage-dwelling communities were disturbed by the clothianidin seed treatment, with significant negative and positive changes in taxa abundances. Clothianidin reduced the abundance of minute pirate bugs by 66.2%, lady beetles by 44.7%, ants by 43.4%, ground beetle adults and larvae by 31.7%, and rove beetles by 44.1% during the early corn growth stages.

Imidacloprid binds irreversibly to the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) in the insect nervous system, and their activation ultimately leads to the death of the neuron (Casida and Durkin, 2013). Imidacloprid toxicity increases upon the molecule’s cumulative binding to nAChRs, and the toxic effects can be reinforced even at low-dose exposure over extended periods of time (Tennekes and Sanchez-Bayo, 2011).