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More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas.

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TLDR
This analysis estimates a seasonal decline of 76%, and mid-summer decline of 82% in flying insect biomass over the 27 years of study, and shows that this decline is apparent regardless of habitat type, while changes in weather, land use, and habitat characteristics cannot explain this overall decline.
Abstract
Global declines in insects have sparked wide interest among scientists, politicians, and the general public. Loss of insect diversity and abundance is expected to provoke cascading effects on food webs and to jeopardize ecosystem services. Our understanding of the extent and underlying causes of this decline is based on the abundance of single species or taxonomic groups only, rather than changes in insect biomass which is more relevant for ecological functioning. Here, we used a standardized protocol to measure total insect biomass using Malaise traps, deployed over 27 years in 63 nature protection areas in Germany (96 unique location-year combinations) to infer on the status and trend of local entomofauna. Our analysis estimates a seasonal decline of 76%, and mid-summer decline of 82% in flying insect biomass over the 27 years of study. We show that this decline is apparent regardless of habitat type, while changes in weather, land use, and habitat characteristics cannot explain this overall decline. This yet unrecognized loss of insect biomass must be taken into account in evaluating declines in abundance of species depending on insects as a food source, and ecosystem functioning in the European landscape.

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Journal ArticleDOI

Save the Bees? Agrochemical Corporations and the Debate Over Neonicotinoids in Ontario

TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that agrochemical corporations intervened in multiple ways in the debate about neonicotinoid pesticides in Ontario, potentially weakening the legislation, which has led to a growing demand that these pesticides should be banned or restricted.
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Changes in phenology and abundance of suction‐trapped Diptera from a farmland site in the UK over four decades

TL;DR: This data sets show clear trends in the number of insect species killed and the intensity of declines over time, and these trends are similar to those seen in previous studies using long‐term population‐monitoring data.
Dissertation

Fauna člankonožaca na žutim ljepljivim pločama u ekološkim i integriranim maslinicima i vinogradima Zadarske županije tijekom 2018.

TL;DR: Clankonosci (Arthropoda) predstavljaju najbrojniju i najrasprostranjeniju skupinu beskraljeţnjaka.
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Can invasive species replace native species as a resource for birds under climate change? A case study on bird-fruit interactions

TL;DR: It is found that while invasive shrubs fruited later, on average, than native plants, and comprised a large proportion of the total available fruits in late-autumn, birds primarily consumed the fruits of native species throughout the autumn season.
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Sub-Lethal Doses of Clothianidin Inhibit the Conditioning and Biosensory Abilities of the Western Honeybee Apis mellifera.

TL;DR: Results show that clothianidin is not only highly toxic to honeybees, but can, at lower doses, also disrupt the biosensory capabilities of survivors, probably reducing fitness at the individual level.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4

TL;DR: In this article, a model is described in an lmer call by a formula, in this case including both fixed-and random-effects terms, and the formula and data together determine a numerical representation of the model from which the profiled deviance or the profeatured REML criterion can be evaluated as a function of some of model parameters.
Journal ArticleDOI

Inference from Iterative Simulation Using Multiple Sequences

TL;DR: The focus is on applied inference for Bayesian posterior distributions in real problems, which often tend toward normal- ity after transformations and marginalization, and the results are derived as normal-theory approximations to exact Bayesian inference, conditional on the observed simulations.
Journal ArticleDOI

Bayesian measures of model complexity and fit

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the problem of comparing complex hierarchical models in which the number of parameters is not clearly defined and derive a measure pD for the effective number in a model as the difference between the posterior mean of the deviances and the deviance at the posterior means of the parameters of interest, which is related to other information criteria and has an approximate decision theoretic justification.
Journal ArticleDOI

Global pollinator declines: trends, impacts and drivers.

TL;DR: The nature and extent of reported declines, and the potential drivers of pollinator loss are described, including habitat loss and fragmentation, agrochemicals, pathogens, alien species, climate change and the interactions between them are reviewed.

JAGS: A program for analysis of Bayesian graphical models using Gibbs sampling

TL;DR: JAGS is a program for Bayesian Graphical modelling which aims for compatibility with Classic BUGS and could eventually be developed as an R package.
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