Although the disappearance of some species of mammals or birds is undoubtedly worrying and may be more striking for the media and society in general, scientific evidence shows that the living beings for whose well-being we should lose sleep are insects, since that are succumbing to a massive and accelerating extinction. And without them, fundamental pillars in the food chains, the rest of living beings are aviated.
One of the most recent studies has been carried out by researchers from the Amateur Entomology Society of Krefeld (Germany) – a locality near the Dutch border – who have compared the insect samples they have collected each year, for decades, in their traps –all of them the same size, made with identical materials and always located in the same 63 locations–. The results show a shocking population decline.
The first samples were collected in 1982, and entomologists have found, with justified concern, that the total biomass of flying insects in the area has decreased by 76% since then. Something that has very serious consequences on the ecosystem… Just across the border, in the Netherlands, ecology professor Hans de Kroon had been studying the decline in the number of birds in the area for some time. One of his theories was that the population decline was due to a shortage of food, and the study of German entomologists seems to confirm his suspicions: with far fewer insects to eat, the birds are also disappearing.
A global problem
But the worst thing is that the extinction of insects is not located exclusively in a specific region of the planet. In Australia, the Spanish researcher Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, from the University of Sydney, and the Belgian Kris Wyckhuys, from the University of Queensland, published a few months ago a synthesis of 73 studies on entomological fauna in locations around the world and estimated that more than 40% of all insect species could disappear in the coming decades and that, each year, 1% of insect species are added to the list of candidates for extinction. In the last 30 years, the rate of loss of insects has been 2.5% per year.
“If the loss of insect species cannot be stopped, the consequences will be catastrophic both for the planet’s ecosystems and for the survival of humanity – affirmed Francisco Sánchez-Bayo in the British newspaper The Guardian -. In 10 years we will have a quarter fewer insects, in 50 years there will be only half and in 100 years they will have disappeared ”.
Any concrete examples of this “invisible” extinction? In England, the variety of butterfly species declined by 58% between 2000 and 2009; in Oklahoma (USA), bee species were reduced by half between 1949 and 2013. And why is this extinction process? The main cause, according to experts, could be intensive agriculture, which removes trees and shrubs and bathes entire fields with insecticides.
