Tag Archives: insects

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 46: Tropical insects vulnerable due to narrow fitness curve

You would think tropical species like warm weather – and what’s the difference between warm and 2 or 3 degrees warmer. Well, they can be picky. A short appendix to our previous article – a bit of supporting theory as … Continue reading →

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 45: Massive die-off tropical insects direct result of warming

Climate news does not get worse: new field data show total insect (and other arthropod) biomass in Central American rainforest has declined 10 to 60 times since the 1970s. Meanwhile also insectivores, like lizards, frogs and birds, are rapidly declining … Continue reading →

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 39: Warming also causes spatial mismatch interacting species

Climate change can cause a ‘temporal mismatch’ between interacting species, we learned in our previous article. Here’s a short appendix to that piece, illustrating how simultaneously also a spatial mismatch can develop – further promoting population declines and biodiversity loss, … Continue reading →

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 24: Insects Germany declined 76% in just 27 years(!)

The numbers of flying insects in nature reserves throughout Germany show a staggering decline. Taken on average over the months of April to October between 1989 and 2016 insect numbers declined 76%. In mid-summer measurements show an even more rapid … Continue reading →

Nature: climate change leads to 67-84 percent intraspecific biodiversity loss by 2080 – Holocene Mass Extinction within this century

The better we define the richness of life on Earth, the larger the percentage we are going to lose becomes. Life won’t go extinct. The number of domains and kingdoms will very-very likely remain the same. But as we go … Continue reading →

Unravelling CCD: virus and fungus combinedly killing bees?

The mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder, a sudden die-off of bee populations that spread across the world since 2006, is slowly being solved. CCD may not have one single cause, but rather multiple factors adding up, including pollution and diseases … Continue reading →