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.
Based on the science available to date, there is evidence to support the claim that bats are being negatively affected by neonicotinoid insecticides in several different ways, indirectly through reduction in insect abundance and directly through impairment.
Insektensterben und Lichtverschmutzung werden erstmals auf UN-Ebene verhandelt. Bundesumweltministerin Svenja Schulze: „Das Jahr 2020 muss zum Wendepunkt für den internationalen Arten- und Naturschutz werden. Die Vertragsstaatenkonferenz der Bonner Konvention in Indien hat hierfür den Ton angegeben: Wir brauchen weitere Fortschritte, um bedrohte Tierarten vor dem Aussterben zu schützen. Dazu gehören auch konkrete Schutzmaßnahmen vor Ort, um wandernden Tierarten bessere Lebenschancen zu geben.“
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.
Ya se trate de una plaga de langostas en África Occidental o de la desaparición de insectos en Alemania: estas catástrofes se deben al cambio climático, la alta demanda de alimentos y errores en la agricultura.
Short-term peaks of contaminant concentrations and flows go undetected at many minesites. Recent biological studies have shown that short peaks can contribute significantly to toxicity due to aspects like damage per unit of time, accumulating damage through time, damage at any concentration, temporally aligned or offset synergistic and antagonistic interactions, and slowly reversible or non-reversible uptake and binding of some metals and other elements.
Since 2013, a European Union (EU) moratorium has restricted the application of three neonicotinoids to crops that attract bees because of the harmful effects they are deemed to have on these insects. Yet researchers from the CNRS, INRA, and the Institut de l'Abeille (ITSAP) have just demonstrated that residues of these insecticides -- and especially of imidacloprid -- can still be detected in rape nectar from 48% of the plots of studied fields, their concentrations varying greatly over the years.
Neonicotinoid insecticides, also known as neonics, are doing more than killing bees and other insects in record numbers, according to a report issued last month by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an international environmental advocacy group. Neonics, the council says, are contaminating New York State’s soil and water and “hollowing out ecosystems from the bottom up.”
The emergence of Hexagenia limbata mayflies, throughout the Great Lakes and parts of the mid-Atlantic region, is nearly a religious event in angling circles. Each year in early June, these enormous mayflies blanket the landscape, emerging by the billions each night, smothering waterways, riverbanks, roadways and more with thousands of tons of trout-candy biomass. Not long ago, these historic and essential emergences were almost wiped out. By 1970, Hexagenia were gone from large swaths of the Midwest.
Pesticiden kunnen schadelijk zijn voor mens en milieu, maar het is de Europese Unie de afgelopen tien jaar nauwelijks gelukt de risico’s terug te dringen. Ook schiet de handhaving ernstig tekort. Boerenbedrijven in overtreding worden nauwelijks of niet beboet. Dat concludeert de Europese Rekenkamer in een rapport. Het onderzoek van de Rekenkamer vond plaats in Nederland, Frankrijk en Litouwen.