Insect Populations Are Shrinking. Big Agriculture and Climate Change Are to Blame
A new study finds that the number of insects, including important pollinators, has declined by nearly 50 percent in certain areas.
Insect populations are taking a hit around the globe, and climate change and Big Ag may be to blame.
According to a study conducted by University College London (UCL), the combination of rising temperatures due to climate change and land-use changes are directly linked to widespread losses in insect species around the world.
The study, published in Nature, found that changing temperatures and “intensive agricultural land use” in the most impacted parts of the world (tropical regions, according to the research) are already responsible for a reduction in insect numbers.
In areas with both high-intensity agriculture and substantial temperature increases, researchers found the number of insects was 49 percent lower than populations in natural habitats in areas without notable climate warming.
And insect populations are already in peril. In 2019, Biological Conservation released a report stating that 40 percent of all insect species are declining globally, which is bad news for crops. Insects and the way they interact with other species within ecosystems can have large, positive impacts on crop growth, meaning decline in their populations could cause a ripple effect in the food system.
“Losing insect populations could be harmful not only to the natural environment, where insects often play key roles in local ecosystems, but it could also harm human health and food security, particularly with losses of pollinators,” said Charlie Outhwaite, lead author of the study and part of the UCL Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research and Biosciences.
RELATED: Making the Case for Bugs
For the study, researchers analyzed a dataset of “insect abundance and species richness” from around the world. They then compared insect biodiversity in different regions, taking into account both the intensity of agriculture in each area and the history of climate warming the region has experienced.
Researchers found that climate change wasn’t fully to blame. Of the regions that have suffered substantial warming, those with low-intensity agriculture and an abundance of still-natural habitat have been able to buffer the insect loss. In fact, regions that remained 75 percent natural habitat only saw a seven-percent decrease in insect populations, compared to the 63-percent decline in comparable areas with only 25 percent natural habitat. That’s because insects often rely on plants for shade on hot days, exemplifying the importance of natural habitat to their populations.
Despite the vastness of its research, which included 750,000 records from nearly 20,000 insect species, the team says its findings are just the tip of the iceberg as it continues to study and measure the true scale of insect decline. Insect decline due to “human influences” is likely much greater than the findings uncovered, according to the study, as factors such as pollution weren’t considered in the research.
“Our findings highlight the urgency of actions to preserve natural habitats, slow the expansion of high-intensity agriculture and cut emissions to mitigate climate change,” said Outhwaite.
Follow us
Republish!
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Want to republish a Modern Farmer story?
We are happy for Modern Farmer stories to be shared, and encourage you to republish our articles for your audience. When doing so, we ask that you follow these guidelines:
Please credit us and our writers
For the author byline, please use “Author Name, Modern Farmer.” At the top of our stories, if on the web, please include this text and link: “This story was originally published by Modern Farmer.”
Please make sure to include a link back to either our home page or the article URL.
At the bottom of the story, please include the following text:
“Modern Farmer is a nonprofit initiative dedicated to raising awareness and catalyzing action at the intersection of food, agriculture, and society. Read more at <link>Modern Farmer</link>.”
Use our widget
We’d like to be able to track our stories, so we ask that if you republish our content, you do so using our widget (located on the left hand side of the article). The HTML code has a built-in tracker that tells us the data and domain where the story was published, as well as view counts.
Check the image requirements
It’s your responsibility to confirm you're licensed to republish images in our articles. Some images, such as those from commercial providers, don't allow their images to be republished without permission or payment. Copyright terms are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. You are welcome to omit our images or substitute with your own. Charts and interactive graphics follow the same rules.
Don’t change too much. Or, ask us first.
Articles must be republished in their entirety. It’s okay to change references to time (“today” to “yesterday”) or location (“Iowa City, IA” to “here”). But please keep everything else the same.
If you feel strongly that a more material edit needs to be made, get in touch with us at [email protected]. We’re happy to discuss it with the original author, but we must have prior approval for changes before publication.
Special cases
-
Extracts. You may run the first few lines or paragraphs of the article and then say: “Read the full article at Modern Farmer” with a link back to the original article.
-
Quotes. You may quote authors provided you include a link back to the article URL.
-
Translations. These require writer approval. To inquire about translation of a Modern Farmer article, contact us at [email protected]
-
Signed consent / copyright release forms. These are not required, provided you are following these guidelines.
-
Print. Articles can be republished in print under these same rules, with the exception that you do not need to include the links.
Tag us
When sharing the story on social media, please tag us using the following: - Twitter (@ModFarm) - Facebook (@ModernFarmerMedia) - Instagram (@modfarm)
Use our content respectfully
Modern Farmer is a nonprofit and as such we share our content for free and in good faith in order to reach new audiences. Respectfully,
-
No selling ads against our stories. It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads.
-
Don’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
-
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. We understand that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarize or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
Keep in touch
We want to hear from you if you love Modern Farmer content, have a collaboration idea, or anything else to share. As a nonprofit outlet, we work in service of our community and are always open to comments, feedback, and ideas. Contact us at [email protected].Insect Populations Are Shrinking. Big Agriculture and Climate Change Are to Blame
by Shea Swenson, Modern Farmer
May 5, 2022
Modern Farmer Weekly
Solutions Hub
Innovations, ideas and inspiration. Actionable solutions for a resilient food system.
ExploreShare With Us
We want to hear from Modern Farmer readers who have thoughtful commentary, actionable solutions, or helpful ideas to share.
Submit
The silver lining may be that habitat corridors can buffer populations against the effects of climate change. When it comes to insect conservation, small “islands” or corridors of native plantings in backyards or agricultural fields can make a big impact.
Insect conservation tends to get overlooked, so thanks for highlighting this research!
The earth’s temperatures fluctuate in a cycle and we heading for a cooling. Check out Grand Solar Minimum. I attribute the decline on chemtrails and 5 G! If you take a look at what is discovered UNDER the melting ice and snow you would agree it was a much warmer time before the snow fell and created ice sheets and glaciers.