Britain's insect population decimated

[treesparrow]

Britain's insect population decimated by wet weather as experts warn many species 'might not recover'

Bees struggling to find nectar, while wasps cannot find enough aphids to eat, says Buglife charity

Rare species may be at risk of extinction following some of the wettest months on record

...But good news for animals that like damp climes, like slugs and snails

Insects are struggling with the UK's wet and cold summer, and are now at very low numbers, according to a wildlife charity.

The Buglife conservation charity says that bees, wasps, moths and butterflies have all seen their populations drop in 2012 - and rare species may be at risk of extinction due to the elements.

Bees and wasps have struggled to find enough nectar and aphids to feed on, while charity volunteers are reporting less sightings of moths and butterflies.

Insects are vulnerable to weather changes, and this year has seen some of the heaviest rainfall ever - with April and June the wettest quarter ever reported.

Chief executive Matt Shardlow told the BBC: 'They might not recover and could be driven closer to extinction.'

Shardlow said damp conditions have reduced the number of aphids for wasps to feed on, and 250 species of bees were struggling without the high temperatures need to ensure a good supply of nectar and pollen.

He said: 'We are seeing very low numbers of them now, as well as small bumble bees, which is a sign they haven't had enough nectar and pollen to feed on.'

However it is not all bad news in the insect world, with creatures that thrive in damp conditions doing well over the wet months.

Shardlow said drone flies and mosquitoes, and snails and slugs, have seen population booms.

He said: 'This means that anything which feeds on slugs and snails will also benefit this year.

'We've had reports of large numbers of glow worms, for example, which feed on slugs and snails.'

But volunteer counters are reporting a drop in moth and butterfly populations.

 

[Laura]

Sure hope that includes the chiggers and mosquitoes. I like bees, though.

 

[NewOrleans]

They're all interdependent and we can't have one insect population without the others. I'd suffer a misquito bite to see nature in balance, myself.The bad news for humans is that pollination is necessary for farming. This is a bad sign. Albert Einstein said “If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years left to live.” So this might be a countdown to extinction too.

 

[Ðekel]

SPAIN: July 19, 2007

MADRID - A parasite common in Asian bees has spread to Europe and the Americas and is behind the mass disappearance of honeybees in many countries, says a Spanish scientist who has been studying the phenomenon for years.

The culprit is a microscopic parasite called nosema ceranae said Mariano Higes, who leads a team of researchers at a government-funded apiculture centre in Guadalajara, the province east of Madrid that is the heartland of Spain's honey industry. He and his colleagues have analysed thousands of samples from stricken hives in many countries.

"We started in 2000 with the hypothesis that it was pesticides, but soon ruled it out," he told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

Pesticide traces were present only in a tiny proportion of samples and bee colonies were also dying in areas many miles from cultivated land, he said.

They then ruled out the varroa mite, which is easy to see and which was not present in most of the affected hives.

For a long time Higes and his colleagues thought a parasite called nosema apis, common in wet weather, was killing the bees.

"We saw the spores, but the symptoms were very different and it was happening in dry weather too."

Then he decided to sequence the parasite's DNA and discovered it was an Asian variant, nosema ceranae. Asian honeybees are less vulnerable to it, but it can kill European bees in a matter of days in laboratory conditions.

"Nosema ceranae is far more dangerous and lives in heat and cold. A hive can become infected in two months and the whole colony can collapse in six to 18 months," said Higes, whose team has published a number of papers on the subject.

"We've no doubt at all it's nosema ceranae and we think 50 percent of Spanish hives are infected," he said.

Spain, with 2.3 million hives, is home to a quarter of the European Union's bees.

His team have also identified this parasite in bees from Austria, Slovenia and other parts of Eastern Europe and assume it has invaded from Asia over a number of years.

Now it seems to have crossed the Atlantic and is present in Canada and Argentina, he said. The Spanish researchers have not tested samples from the United States, where bees have also gone missing.

Treatment for nosema ceranae is effective and cheap -- 1 euro (US$1.4) a hive twice a year -- but beekeepers first have to be convinced the parasite is the problem.

Another theory points a finger at mobile phone aerials, but Higes notes bees use the angle of the sun to navigate and not electromagnetic frequencies.

Other elements, such as drought or misapplied treatments, may play a part in lowering bees' resistance, but Higes is convinced the Asian parasite is the chief assassin.

from; _http://viewzone2.com/lostbeesx.html

so this is one option.

at any rate, anything affecting whole populations of a given species across continents is bound to have global repercussions, especially when pollination is considered in this case.

I think that the mere fact that events of this magnitude are taking place recently, is indicative of just how massive the changes are that are unfolding..

 

[whitecoast]

They're all interdependent and we can't have one insect population without the others. I'd suffer a misquito bite to see nature in balance, myself.The bad news for humans is that pollination is necessary for farming. This is a bad sign. Albert Einstein said “If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years left to live.” So this might be a countdown to extinction too.

It has never actually been verified that Einstein said anything related to the bees, and many think it was just a cheap way to tack a pop scientist's repute to a particular position re: bee extinction __http://www.snopes.com/quotes/einstein/bees.asp

But yeah, scary nonetheless. :(

 

[loreta]

This is terrible. No insects no birds. Insects also are food for spiders. No spiders,no birds. Where I live, that is in the country, there is less and less birds year by year. What will be a world without birds? Without spiders? Without bees? So this news is more horrendous than it seems. And we are part of this circle of live. So yes, I think we are at the brink of the extinction. The signs are here. And look at humanity. More and more people that are very bad not just physically but mentally.

But people don't care about insects. They are unable to see the links between insects and the rest of the animal kingdom. This is really sad.

 

[Ben]

This is terrible. No insects no birds. Insects also are food for spiders. No spiders,no birds. Where I live, that is in the country, there is less and less birds year by year. What will be a world without birds? Without spiders? Without bees? So this news is more horrendous than it seems. And we are part of this circle of live. So yes, I think we are at the brink of the extinction. The signs are here. And look at humanity. More and more people that are very bad not just physically but mentally.

But people don't care about insects. They are unable to see the links between insects and the rest of the animal kingdom. This is really sad.

So many important species of amphibians and insects have already gone extinct or will do so in the near future. I think it will take an extinction of a large mammal species to open some people's eyes, but even then it will be too late. There is simply not enough habitat to support them while humans use the land as they do.

 

[Graalsword]

So many important species of amphibians and insects have already gone extinct or will do so in the near future. I think it will take an extinction of a large mammal species to open some people's eyes, but even then it will be too late. There is simply not enough habitat to support them while humans use the land as they do.

Yes. If this happens, I guess it is part of the Earth changes. Sooner or later some event will wipe out most physical life if a new mass extinction is coming. It might look as something terrible, but it will utimately lead to restore the balance. I just hope those little critters reincarnate in another planet in a new species.