More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas.
Caspar A. Hallmann,Martin Sorg,Eelke Jongejans,Henk Siepel,Nick Hofland,Heinz Schwan,Werner Stenmans,Andreas Müller,Hubert Sumser,Thomas Hörren,Dave Goulson,Hans de Kroon +11 more
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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.read more
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Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems
Walter C. Willett,Johan Rockström,Johan Rockström,Brent Loken,Marco Springmann,Tim Lang,Sonja J. Vermeulen,Sonja J. Vermeulen,Tara Garnett,David Tilman,David Tilman,Fabrice DeClerck,Fabrice DeClerck,Amanda Wood,Malin Jonell,Michael Clark,Line Gordon,Jessica Fanzo,Corinna Hawkes,Rami Zurayk,Juan A Rivera,Wim de Vries,Lindiwe Majele Sibanda,Ashkan Afshin,Abhishek Chaudhary,Abhishek Chaudhary,Mario Herrero,Rina Agustina,Francesco Branca,Anna Lartey,Shenggen Fan,Beatrice Crona,Elizabeth L. Fox,Victoria Bignet,Max Troell,Max Troell,Therese Lindahl,Therese Lindahl,Sudhvir Singh,Sarah Cornell,K. Srinath Reddy,Sunita Narain,Sania Nishtar,Christopher J L Murray +43 more
TL;DR: Food in the Anthropocene : the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems focuses on meat, fish, vegetables and fruit as sources of protein.
Journal ArticleDOI
Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers
TL;DR: In this paper, a comprehensive review of 73 historical reports of insect declines from across the globe, and systematically assess the underlying drivers of insect extinction, reveals dramatic rates of decline that may lead to the extinction of 40% of the world's insect species over the next few decades.
Journal ArticleDOI
Arthropod decline in grasslands and forests is associated with landscape-level drivers
Sebastian Seibold,Martin M. Gossner,Nadja K. Simons,Nadja K. Simons,Nico Blüthgen,Jörg Müller,Didem Ambarlı,Didem Ambarlı,Christian Ammer,Jürgen Bauhus,Markus Fischer,Jan Christian Habel,Jan Christian Habel,Karl Eduard Linsenmair,Thomas Nauss,Caterina Penone,Daniel Prati,Peter Schall,Ernst Detlef Schulze,Juliane Vogt,Stephan Wöllauer,Wolfgang W. Weisser +21 more
TL;DR: The results suggest that major drivers of arthropod decline act at larger spatial scales, and are associated with agriculture at the landscape level, which implies that policies need to address the landscape scale to mitigate the negative effects of land-use practices.
Journal ArticleDOI
Insect decline in the Anthropocene: Death by a thousand cuts
TL;DR: Wagner et al. as discussed by the authors found that more than half of all amphibians are imperiled and more than 80% of all vertebrate species are in danger of extinction over the next few decades.
Journal ArticleDOI
Insect Declines in the Anthropocene
TL;DR: Because the geographic extent and magnitude of insect declines are largely unknown, there is an urgent need for monitoring efforts, especially across ecological gradients, which will help to identify important causal factors in declines.
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