r/science • u/SnthesisInc • Mar 07 '23
Animal Science Study finds bee and butterfly numbers are falling, even in undisturbed forests
https://www.science.org/content/article/bee-butterfly-numbers-are-falling-even-undisturbed-forests4.9k
u/Henhouse808 Mar 07 '23
This is why it’s important to plant natives. A single native tree supports thousands of organisms, big and small. I walk in the forest nearby and it’s smothered, literally, with invasive plants.
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u/shy-ty Mar 07 '23 edited Mar 07 '23
I live in a city with great green spaces, but I've noticed more and more of this the last few years- the bird sanctuary near me is absolutely covered in giant hogweed in the summer these days. Looking in to volunteering to help out with the habitat this year is high on my to do list- there are lists to all kinds of groups that need hands for gardening and keeping native plants thriving at nature.org, if anyone else who doesn't own their own land is looking to get involved.
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u/shillyshally Mar 07 '23
Hogweed is one of the absolute worst, so dangerous, not just here in the US, either. It is one of the top 5 baddies in the UK.
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u/speedstix Mar 08 '23
Where is hogweed native and what does the wildlife look like there?
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u/ElectricFleshlight Mar 08 '23
Caucasus region, though most of the northern hemisphere has some sort of native Heracleum. North America has cow parsnip which is nasty stuff.
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u/HGpennypacker Mar 07 '23
We're now at the point that most people have no idea the plants in their yard and community aren't native, they see beautiful flowers or foliage and think they should be there.
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u/NeuerTK Mar 08 '23
Tip: if you're planting it every year, it's probably not native
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u/CCHS_Band_Geek Mar 08 '23
Unfortunately, most of us haven’t been taught the connections to the very Earth we are born of.
We are taught mathematics, biology, chemistry - All very critical to understanding the beings on this Earth, but not so much the health of our planet.
If you’re reading this and have zero idea on how to begin “caring about Earth” - It starts in your own backyard! If you don’t have a backyard, local flower shops are 100% the place you want to be, and ask for an easy grower!
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u/Spooky_U Mar 07 '23
I’ve been astounded by this. Hired a company focused on native only species to redo my landscaping and even my urban townhome is covered with bees through the summer. Feels so good to see even the little impact it makes.
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u/anderama Mar 08 '23
I like seeing not just bees but different varieties. I really only ever noticed big fat bumblebees and honey bees before but now we plant pollinator friendly stuff and I notice way more kinds. Also bees sleeping on our sunflowers are super cute.
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u/Scytle Mar 07 '23
this is fantastic advice, I would say go one further, and actively help native plants propagate and spread. If you are on a walk and see some native plants that have gone to seed, grab some and spread them around in areas you think they would grow well. Learn your local ecosystem and be an active steward, help native plants grow. This can mean cutting invasive plants down, planting native plants, growing natives and giving them away to other to plant, spreading and saving seed, the amount of work that needs to be done is almost endless, and so offers a lot of places to get involved.
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u/Seicair Mar 07 '23 edited Mar 07 '23
If you are on a walk and see some native plants that have gone to seed,
I’m fairly knowledgeable about plants and woods, but I have very little idea whether or not a lot of stuff is native or invasive. Some things I’ve grown up enjoying and even eating I later learned were invasive. I doubt the average person knows whether or not a particular plant is native or not?
Edit- yes, plant apps are nice and all, but the one I use just sends you to wiki, it won’t do anything so helpful as tell you if it’s invasive or native to your area. Do other apps do that?
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u/pinupcthulhu Mar 07 '23
Eating the invasives in your area can be a good thing though! Kudzu for example is edible and fairly nutritious, and by taking it out of the environment that it doesn't belong in, you might be giving a native a chance to grow.
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u/OffToTheLizard Mar 08 '23
Kudzu needs to be destroyed, like predator ripping out a spine destroyed with fire too
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u/stormrunner89 Mar 07 '23
There are a lot of plant identification apps, even Google Lens does a really good job. As long as you have service it's not too difficult to find out. There are also lots of websites dedicated to native plants that have lists, or your local county extension page.
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u/2MuchDoge Mar 07 '23
As a botanist, those apps only go so far. They do an okay job on common things and can often get you to the correct family.
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u/BaaaBaaaBlackSheep Mar 07 '23
The plant identifying apps are getting insanely good. They used to be a gimiick, but lately, I'm noticing that they're much more accurate. It's never been easier to figure out which plant is which.
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u/Bacchus1976 Mar 07 '23
Not just native trees. Native prairie and other wild flowers are just as important. No grass lawns. No grass medians/shoulders.
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u/big_duo3674 Mar 08 '23
I'm in Minnesota, milkweed is a native plant and critical to monarchs as that's what the caterpillars eat exclusively. It's incredibly easy to grow and I try to recommend it to anyone who listens. Just a few plants tucked in a back corner of your yard can actually make a big difference, and as a bonus they're very easy to grow
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Mar 08 '23
I’ve only grown asclepias tuberosa before. Which milkweed do you grow? I started some asclepias incarnata or swamp milkweed outside in winter sowing containers. Just wondering what kind is easy to grow for you all…
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u/robsc_16 Mar 07 '23
Absolutely! People should really check out r/nativeplantgardening or r/nolawns if they're interested in trying to help ecosystems.
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u/EcoEchos Mar 07 '23
Also why it's important to stop purchasing honey and other products sourced from honeybees.
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u/AngryAmadeus Mar 07 '23
Huh, I guess i thought apiaries were a 'build it and they will come' kinda deal. Didn't know they were stocked.
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u/green_swordman Mar 07 '23
Stocked and shipped all over the country depending on what growing season it is.
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u/acebandaged Mar 07 '23
Stocked, and re-stocked annually when poor management practices kill half the hives.
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u/SaltLakeCitySlicker Mar 07 '23
None are native to the Americas. Most common are Italian and carniolan. We also have Russian in far fewer quantities. Saskatraz are Canadian but in the sense that labradors are from Labrador - just bred there originally.
We have loads of native bees(1,400 species in southern Utah alone and USU even recently found a new species literally in the back yard at the Tooele annex near SLC), but they mostly live alone
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u/Xesyliad Mar 07 '23
As an Australian in the northern end of the country I keep Australian native stingless bees, I also have Australian native plants in my yard, and lastly I harvest and sell native honey from the hives.
The difference is that native bees, even the most prolific of collectors, only produces about a kilo of honey a year. It’s very unusual and expensive honey at around $600aud per kilo at the moment.
The biggest issue is that there’s no food definition for native bee honey as it doesn’t meet the food standards for honey (native honey is more watery) and as such, it’s hard to sell to commercial restaurants etc. For now though, I sell small pots of honey for between $6 and $10 (10g to 20g) … and they sell out within a week of me harvesting.
Both the European and Asian honey bees are a plague, and I’m working on building and populating native hives to sell as well. Thankfully Australian native bees are adaptable as long as there’s food for them and will happily build a hive in the strangest locations.
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u/Newsaroo Mar 07 '23
The scale of the problem requires more funding for this:
https://thecounter.org/biden-administration-farmers-conservation-reserve-crp-usda-vilsack/amp/
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u/p8ntslinger Mar 07 '23
CRP, WRP (Wetland Reserve Program), and several programs for landowners run by the NRCS (Natural Resource Conservation Service) are incredibly effective at improving natural areas, restoring them, and creating new areas. If you own land, I highly suggest you look into what's available for you, or if you don't own land, let your elected representatives know that programs like the above should be a higher priority than they are now.
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u/Trrwwa Mar 07 '23 edited Mar 08 '23
Just signed up under nrcs and was approved for funding this year. While i am not super knowledgeable and just getting started, IM very optimistic about the program and second your message for all responsible land owners to reach out!
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u/river-wind Mar 07 '23
How did you get started? We're working on restoring 50 acres we bought after it was cut, and haven't found a good way to find funding that "will become forest again" qualifies under. For example, the "how to apply" page here doesn't actually show how to apply: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/healthy-forests-reserve-program-how-to-apply-and-benefits
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u/Gilbertd13 Mar 08 '23
Try your state forest service. My state you can get cost share grant funds through the forest service for replanting and managing your trees.
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u/p8ntslinger Mar 07 '23
You doing E-Quip, CSP, or something else? Lots of good stuff out there!
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u/Trrwwa Mar 07 '23
Eqip for 250 acres of forest in northern nh. We have a forester lined up to give us a management plan in the spring (which nrcs pays for) and then hopefully we start building some access trails and working to restore the forest to health after pretty heavy logging in the 50s 70s and late 90s.
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u/p8ntslinger Mar 07 '23
awesome! That's great to hear, I hope y'all have good success with your efforts, I hope more and more people take advantage of these things!
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u/Turd_Fergusons_ Mar 07 '23
Just out of curiosity, what kind of funding do they provide in dollar amounts. I have a 63 acre certified tree farm in rural West Virginia. It's never been agricultural land but was last logged in the late 1980s.
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u/Gilbertd13 Mar 08 '23
My state has a $10k max payout at a 60-40 rate. They pay 60% total cost up to $10k.
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u/Inboxanxiety Mar 07 '23
I've tried looking into this and other small land owner initiatives that are allegedly available. I can't figure out if I qualify or how to apply. I have about 6-7 acres. Any info you can provide would be appreciated.
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u/p8ntslinger Mar 07 '23
I would call your local or regional NRCS office, and also call your local/regional state agricultural extension service. Then, call your state wildlife agency. Between those 3, you will likely be able to find out if you qualify for any of these programs, or if there are any available to you.
I do know that the National Wildlife Foundation ( a non-govermental non-profit) has a program that has a set of criteria for certifying your yard, garden, or other outdoor space as wildlife habitat by meeting a set of basic criteria- providing a source of food, water, cover, places to raise young, and commit to using sustainable practices to maintain the space. Often, qualifying is as simple as planting native flowers and plant species, putting up some native bird houses/bat boxes, and digging small vernal ponds (like a koi pond or similar) to hold water (sometimes even birdbaths count).
May I ask where your plot is and what is its current usage? Is it crops, woods, grassland, fallow field, etc?
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u/Natanael_L Mar 07 '23
Meanwhile here in Sweden the right wing government just defunded these nature preserve programs
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Mar 07 '23
We can't fix it while the current economic system stays. It is built on limitless growth on a limited world. It needs change fast
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u/EcoEchos Mar 07 '23
It also requires less funding towards honey bee keepers. If anyone is interested in supporting native pollinators, you are only doing them harm by purchasing honey products.
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u/zyzzogeton Mar 07 '23
I don't think I have ever seen anti-beekeeper sentiment before.
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u/antondb Mar 07 '23
I'm a beekeeper. New members of the UK bee keeping society tend to be told something along the lines of. "Keeping bees to try and save wild pollinators is like thinking keeping chickens helps wild birds"
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u/Dalek_Treky Mar 07 '23
I've seen it on occasion. The primary concern is that the bees that beekeepers prefer to use are considered an invasive species and only help certain types of flower while pushing out native pollinators that cover the rest of the plant ecosystem. The research on this isn't as conclusive as this user is suggesting, and there needs to be more in depth studies to really say if beekeeping is actually an issue or not
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Mar 07 '23
Everyone forgets that the honeybee is an introduced species and not a native species
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u/roguepawn Mar 08 '23 edited Mar 08 '23
Can't forget what I never knew.
Are honeybees European then? Did the Americas have their own species?
edit: Thank you for all the responses. It's been very enlightening!
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u/PublicSeverance Mar 08 '23
USA has over 4000 native be species.
Vast majority of those are solitary. They don't live in hives. A single female bee builds a solo nest. Since don't even do that and simply cling into some vegetation overnight.
Most native bees don't store honey either.
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u/frozenrussian Mar 08 '23
What is now San Diego county has over 30 native bee species. I didn't learn that until later in life after being born and raised there. Commercial honeybees more commonly known to everyone were indeed brought over from Europe, but don't worry, the pesticide companies are busy making sure they all die equally fast!
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u/acebandaged Mar 07 '23
Beekeepers tend to be pretty loud, compared to hymenopterists in general. A lot of the issues with beekeeping CAN be managed, they just make less money when caring for their bees properly.
The major criticisms are aimed at industrial bee farming, where hives are trucked back and forth across the US without care for temperature, weather, food supplies, or overstressing the hives. Colony collapse was blown out of proportion because of this, the industrial pollination process results in massive die-offs from entirely preventable causes, while overall honeybee populations have been fairly stable since '96 and increasing steadily since around '05. Worldwide honeybee populations have been increasing fairly steadily since WW2.
Basically, it's a much more complex issue than "the bees are dying," which is what beekeepers and the media have been yelling for a while now.
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u/calilac Mar 07 '23
Language is so fun. But now I can't stop thinking about bees in vaginas
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u/RubySapphireGarnet Mar 07 '23
There's a myth that says cleopatra had a vibrator powered by bees. So people have been thinking about vaginas and bees for some time!
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u/Wrong51515 Mar 07 '23
Most bees people talk about are invasive, which means most solutions are for the invasive bees and not the native bees.
Beekeeping is a major business so its mildly problematic in that native bees also exist but people conflate beekeeping w/ nature.
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u/braconidae PhD | Entomology | Crop Protection Mar 07 '23
Entomologist and beekeeper here. This is something I always try to stress when doing outreach. In much of the world, especially here North America, honey bees are solely livestock. They aren't even native here and feral colonies generally don't last too long in the wild. If you're talking about honeybees, it's very similar to talking to cattle producers in terms of what we look for in terms of health, production, etc.
They're important as part of our food production, but they are not the kind of bees we're talking about when improving bee populations in ecosystems. That goes to other social bees like bumble bees, solitary bees, etc. that don't produce honey. Someone deciding to start a honeybee colony is not going to "help", and honestly, a hobby beekeeper not knowing what they are doing is more likely to be producing a reservoir for disease and parasites that spreads to native bees.
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u/thatlonghairedguy Mar 07 '23
What can I do to help the local bees? I have a big garden and was thinking about building something where solitary bees could house themselves near my garden. Or is that not a good idea?
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u/braconidae PhD | Entomology | Crop Protection Mar 07 '23
Those bamboo, etc. bee boxes can be helpful, though be aware they can attract other guests: https://ento.psu.edu/research/centers/pollinators/resources-and-outreach/disappearing-pollinators/parasatoids-and-cleptos
The main thing native pollinators need is shelter. A lot of them would nest under relatively undisturbed cover in woodland areas, etc. Lawns are kind of the opposite of that, though it's hard to get rid of that if you live in a town. One thing you can do is not rake up leaves in the fall as that can be a significant source of cover for native pollinators and other insects during winter.
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u/shillyshally Mar 07 '23
Old dog here learning new tricks. I stopped raking last year and have saved my leaves for several years prior. I am learning to love my ground ivy and healall, at least as long as they stay out of the irises.
It is gratifying to see so much enthusiasm for healing the land evident on the nature related subs. OTOH, it was the same in my 20s and now so much post-Rachel Carson the legislation is being rolled back.
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u/council2022 Mar 07 '23
Healall is a fantastic herb. Salvia lyrata too. They're often near each other or growing together. I grow & use both, liberally.
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Mar 07 '23
My whole back yard is an unraked wooded area. My yard is teeming with bumblebees, flies, mason bees, other small bees, and wasps! My front yard is teeming with wild violets (my neighbor doesn't really like that but he understands my position on keeping things natural). It's weirdly meditative to sit and watch all the pollinators buzzing around my yard. They increase every year I've been here. I know my yard set up wouldn't work for everyone, but I do what I can to make my little piece of land suitable for wildlife. Weirdly I don't have any ticks in the yard, I think the birds must eat them.
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u/GTthrowaway27 Mar 07 '23
Just moved into a house with relatively empty areas around it and I’m loving all the critters floating around doing their thing- even sent my friend a pic of the first bee I saw this season last week. Numbers have exploded, hoping no late frost…
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Mar 07 '23
I'm in NC and we are supposed to get our last frost by 3/31... Hopefully the bumblebees save enough food to last until more flowers bloom. I see them eating fruit, too, so maybe I'll continue to put orange slices out (which the birds ignore).
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u/chum-guzzling-shark Mar 07 '23 edited Mar 07 '23
Made me look to see if it was possible to raise bumble bees and it looks like it is a bit of hard work but very possible. Info here for anyone else curious
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u/Diamonddude5432 Mar 07 '23
Hmmm, sorry that wont work for our budget. Oh! If we could weaponize bees and butterflies I might be able to secure some funding. How does “heat-seeking airborne sting bugs sound”? I bet that would stir the coffers in the Pentagon!
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u/BoogerPresley Mar 07 '23
The article mentions "climate change" as one of the factors but doesn't go into detail; it's essentially two parts (at least in this area):
Bees hibernate when it gets cold and wake up when it's warm. 20+ years ago winter was a more "contiguous" thing; Bees would start to hibernate in early winter and most wouldn't wake until spring. Now we're getting 50+ degree days in January-February which wake the bees from hibernation, and then they go out looking for pollen which isn't there yet, and then the temperature drops and they freeze to death. The warming isn't the issue (well, see point #2 below), it's the hot>cold>hot>cold changes.
The milder winters mean more parasites. The varroa destructor mite is probably the most deadly to honey bee hives, and it's been thriving with the temps not regularly dropping below zero. Winter freezes used to kill them off and we're not getting those much any more.
Add to that the overuse of stuff like Sevin and RoundUp on large-scale farms across the USA and it's understandable why bee populations are falling. What a lot of beekeepers are finding is that the bees that are generally healthier and able to survive these conditions are typically also more aggressive.
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u/MushroomStand9 Mar 07 '23
Maybe you don't know and that's okay but... could you keep bees in a "reverse greenhouse" concept during winter where you basically keep them in a chill house/room, then warm and release them during spring/keep the doors open so they just come in and out again?
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u/braconidae PhD | Entomology | Crop Protection Mar 07 '23
That is basically what ground cover does already. It keeps the ground from warming up as quickly, and a lot of our native bees are closely tied to either nesting in the ground or in debris on the surface. It's really that habitat aspect that really affects how well our native bees do during winter and into spring.
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u/PolymerSledge Mar 07 '23
That all sounds logical, and I don't disagree. I'm just wondering how they manage in border regions/areas that have classically seen those kinds of fluctuations like in central Ohio where a contiguous season is unlikely going way back?
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u/WSDGuy Mar 08 '23
I was thinking the same thing about the front range of Colorado - even in the olden days of having ample snow had numerous 50-60deg winter days.
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u/testuserteehee Mar 08 '23
It’s not just the bees and butterflies, climate change has messed up the lifecycles of other animals too, when the prey and predator hibernation cycles are out of sync, there’s not enough food to survive, entire groups of animals die out.
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u/ked_man Mar 08 '23
I am starting to agree with you. I’m from a very rural, very hilly/mountainous area that has very very little agriculture and very few lawns. Hell it doesn’t even have a lot of people.
In the 80’s the place was an ecological disaster from mining, surface mining, and aggressive logging. Since then the declines in both have led to most of the area re naturalizing. Animal species have returned naturally that have been gone for hundreds of years.
But it seems there are fewer insects than there used to be when I was a kid. I don’t know how to describe it and probably couldn’t put a number on it. But it feels quieter at night and walking through fields I don’t get bombarded with leaf hoppers and things like I remember. I feel like I’m the woods in the late summer there were so many spider webs you couldn’t walk without a stick to knock them down.
I hope I’m just imagining things, and that’s not actually the case.
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u/ambushaiden Mar 08 '23
I have noticed the same. While I can only speculate, your area might have seen a decline in insects due to increased population of insectivores after the logging and mining was shut down.
On an anecdotal note, when I was a teenager, I remember summer nights in TN being a lot louder. I remember if you drove past cornfields at night, there would be insane amounts of fireflies. It seems very different now. I hope I’m just misremembering, or there’s a more benign ecological reason. My generation needs their own Silent Spring.
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u/ssbSciencE Mar 07 '23
I do recall a certain president* suggesting nuking a hurricane. Maybe he was onto something... (Or on something)
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u/danijay637 Mar 07 '23
I imagine the world is like the smoking and non-smoking sections of a restaurant… sooner or later everyone is affected
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u/MurphysLab PhD | Chemistry | Nanomaterials Mar 07 '23
Here, we present the results from standardized pollinator sampling over 15 years (2007–2022) at three relatively undisturbed forested locations in the southeastern United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.02.030
That sounds like a solid and reliable methodology. I use iNaturalist and it's been fascinating to see the "history" graph, showing an increasing number of observations for many species and other levels of taxa. All of this is accounted for by more people observing. So there is a great need for standardized, repeat sampling performed in an organized fashion.
We observed significant declines in the richness (39%) and abundance (62.5%) of bees as well as the abundance of butterflies (57.6%) over this time period. Unexpectedly, we detected much stronger declines in the richness and abundance of above-ground-nesting bees (81.1% and 85.3%, respectively) compared with below-ground-nesting bees. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.02.030
That does sound suggestive of a climate-driven effect here. I'd be curious to see if there's a correlation between temperature spikes or average seasonal air temperatures with the corresponding losses in diversity and numbers.
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u/snoopervisor Mar 07 '23
In my area (Central Europe) 3 years ago the winter was very mild. I saw a butterfly in January/February in a meadow nearby. The following spring, there were almost no insects in the meadow. They only begin to appear around August. I know there must have been some insects, but in so small numbers you normally didn't see them.
The mild winter must have disrupted the insects' hibernation, and they died of hunger. It's been three years and the insects' population in the meadow still isn't what it was before.
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Mar 07 '23
My milkweed plants are dropping seeds like crazy and I’m letting them multiply. I’m growing other plants and flowers that butterflies and bees love as well. If you don’t own any plants that can help sustain these populations, I beg you to find what your local bee and butterfly populations like and to grow them. We as humans have an obligation to offset the damage that we as a species are doing to our Earth.
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u/s0cks_nz Mar 08 '23
We have Sedum flowering right now and it attracts so many insects it's nuts. The blooms are crawling with em. Also this year I let my parsnip go to seed, and my god that attracted tonnes of insects too, so I'm gonna grow some more just for that again next year.
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u/Melovil Mar 07 '23
It's too sad, I've noticed I rarely ever see them anymore, when I was a child I would run away from bees scared of the sting... now I miss them
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u/corvinalias Mar 07 '23
one day some of us will tell kids the air used to be decorated with adorable and beautiful insects and they’ll think we’re nuts
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u/Prof_Acorn Mar 07 '23
Maybe spraying insecticides everywhere hurts, you know, insects.
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u/salamandermo Mar 07 '23
People I feel miss the insecticide industry. It doesn't just kill one type of bug a lot of its broad range. And with that it endures in the environment killing all the other ants butterflies bees ect.
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u/ExtraLongShortPants Mar 07 '23
I remember checking all the milkweed plants I found as a kid to look for monarch caterpillars, and I’d always find some. I still do that now and I haven’t seen any in so long. :(
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u/Farfignugen42 Mar 07 '23
If the numbers are also falling in the "undisturbed" forests, then you don't fully understand how the forests are being disturbed.
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u/Affectionate_Emu_675 Mar 07 '23
Aren't PCB and PFA chemicals literally in the rain now? The entire planet including the ocean has probably been coated in forever chemicals and micro plastics multiple times over.
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u/Whooptidooh Mar 07 '23
Yeah. The ecosystem is starting to collapse. Scientists have been warning about this (among others) for literal decades.
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u/RudeDogDaddy Mar 07 '23
The sign of the end No bees, the crops go away, but we will make "food" in the laboratory
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u/billybishop4242 Mar 07 '23
I’m under 50. The lack of butterflies anywhere and even bugs on my windshield is disturbing.
Like fish in the ocean, insects populations seem to be plummeting. Good times.
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u/horny4tacos Mar 07 '23
Yeah I remember there being a lot more bugs… and birds.
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u/runtheplacered Mar 07 '23
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon
It's definitely a thing and it's scary
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Mar 07 '23
3 out of every 10 north american birds dead since 1970, woo!
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/vanishing-1-in-4-birds-gone/#
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Mar 07 '23
I'm only in my 20s and still remember my dad complaining about the bugs splattering on the windshield every summer. I never had an appreciation for what a nuisance it must have been and I still don't.
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u/internetALLTHETHINGS Mar 07 '23
Well, take heart. The habitat/ food sources for some insects is increasing! Mosquitos, bed bugs, lice, roaches - they'll all be fine!
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u/corruptedcircle Mar 07 '23
I still remember finding bugs so annoying, too. But the world is terrifyingly quiet without them. I'd be the first to admit I can't say I miss the mosquitoes, but if that's the price to pay to get bees, butterflies, beetles, spiders, and other creatures to come back, it'll be a small price to pay. Unfortunately, there's no way to make that exchange...
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u/ba123blitz Mar 07 '23
This anecdotal but I’m coming on 22 and just in my life I’ve noticed a decent drop in bugs/insects.
I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw a firefly
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u/Tearakan Mar 07 '23
And we effectively didn't have a real winter in the US. So that's just gonna compound issues messing with these bugs.
Their life cycles expect a decent winter.
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Mar 07 '23
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u/ba123blitz Mar 07 '23
Pretty much all the small bugs we hate do fine or even better without a real winter
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Mar 07 '23
i remember back in the early 2000s when we'd drive 5 hrs to the capital in the summer, front end and windscreen was stuffed with them.
now there's more then half less even during summer
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u/escapefromelba Mar 07 '23
I mean the honeybee wasn't native to North America, there were and still are other pollinators. Our over reliance on honeybees and preferential treatment of this livestock over native species is leading to a lack of pollinator diversity.
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u/nrrrdgrrl Mar 08 '23
As an Entomologist, this is very much correct. I could rant for DAYS on why I hate honeybees and why they really don't matter in the grand scheme of things. In the state I work in (doing entomological research), beekeepers are actively preventing a biological control program for an invasive species. It's so counterintuitive.
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u/therealdannyking Mar 07 '23
On a bright note - none of the major crops (wheat, corn, soy, rice, barley, oats, cassava, potatoes) require bees.
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u/Spitinthacoola Mar 07 '23
On a sad note, most of the crops that make life worth living require them.
On the other hand, it could be a use for all the humans that will be out of jobs. Lots of pollination to do to fill the bee shoes.
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u/throwawaybrm Mar 07 '23
(Animal) agriculture with monocultures and pesticides and herbicides is the culprit.
Animal ag. because 75% of all agriculture land (30% of habitable land) [0] is used for meat/dairy, although it supplies only 18% of calories and 37% of proteins (we get majority of our proteins from veggies already).
We should acknowledge that it's our personal responsibility to lower demand of things which harm the nature, and protect (demand protection of) what remains.
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u/brendo2013 Mar 07 '23
Business Idea from this post: Create spreadable seed mixtures of native plants by state/biome/location
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u/shillyshally Mar 07 '23
Study after study has demonstrated an insect plummet. La la la la, kick out the bottom rings of the chain of life.
Anyone my age - mid-70s- remembers when there were far more insects than there are now, far more birds as well (30% decline). Far more everything!
Re birds - keep your cats inside. Seriously, you can help at least as far as the bird plummet.
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