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A Reason To Worry
Without bugs and tiny little critters, we are screwed.
Insects are declining rapidly — here’s why that needs to change.
What’s causing the sharp decline in beneficial insects? Their populations are declining dramatically in most parts of the world and recent studies show human actions are to blame. Researchers say many factors including habitat loss, monoculture farming, deforestation, and illegal use of insecticides are the cause of the decline of beneficial insects, many that are essential to agriculture, ecosystems, and human life on this planet.
The decline in insect populations is a worldwide problem. A study back in 2014 in Science Magazine documented a steep drop in beneficial insect and invertebrate populations in nearly every country around the world at that time. The situation has improved very little since then. Combining data from some in-depth research on our planet’s insect life worldwide, lead author Rodolfo Dirzo, an ecologist at Stanford University, developed a global index for the invertebrate abundance that indicated a forty-five percent decline over the last four decades. Dirzo points out that of 3,623 terrestrial invertebrate species on the International Union for…
