30%+

30% +of all arable land is used to feed or house these guys, along with pigs, chickens and  turkeys, an astounding percentage of earth's resources to say the least, but that's not all.

When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure. 

And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.

Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing. 

But there is another way.

Entomophagy, a viable alternative for the following reasons.

• Health:

- Insects are healthy, nutritious alternatives to mainstream staples such as chicken,

pork, beef and even fish (from ocean catch).

- Many insects are rich in protein and good fats and high in calcium, iron and zinc.

- Insects already form a traditional part of many regional and national diets.

• Environmental:

- Insects promoted as food emit considerably fewer greenhouse gases (GHGs) than

most livestock (methane, for instance, is produced by only a few insect groups,

such as termites and cockroaches).

- Insect rearing is not necessarily a land-based activity and does not require

landclearing to expand production. Feed is the major requirement for land.

- The ammonia emissions associated with insect rearing are also far lower than

those linked to conventional livestock, such as pigs.

- Because they are cold-blooded, insects are very efficient at converting feed into

protein (crickets, for example, need 12 times less feed than cattle, four times less

feed than sheep, and half as much feed as pigs and broiler chickens to produce

the same amount of protein).

- Insects can be fed on organic waste streams.

• Livelihoods (economic and social factors):

- Insect harvesting/rearing is a low-tech, low-capital investment option that offers

entry even to the poorest sections of society, such as women and the landless.

- Minilivestock offer livelihood opportunities for both urban and rural people.

Two billion people live on insects without issue, something to consider don't you think?

Nowhere to go ...

Daniel Janzen has been monitoring insects since the 1970s in Costa Rica’s Guanacaste conservation area. He says he has seen biodiversity crash even in pristine environments.
Photograph: P Greenfield/Guardian

Oh where have the insects gone?, a question more and more people are asking while the collapse of these creatures continues unabated due to pollution, environmental degradation, habitat loss and chemicals, a situation becoming increasingly dire as we speak. Back in the day, yours truly had to clean off the windshield of a beloved VW Camper Bus nearly every 15 minutes due to the flying hordes of insects one encountered in the 70's but no more. As per George Carlin, the earth will survive, us, well, that's another story.

A new point in history has been reached, entomologists say, as climate-led species’ collapse moves up the food chain even in supposedly protected regions free of pesticides

Crumbling populations

The declines witnessed by Janzen – and described by others around the world – are part of what some ecologists call a “new era” of ecological collapse, where rapid extinctions occur in regions that have little direct contact with people.

Reports of falling insect numbers around the world are not new. International reviews have estimated annual losses globally of between 1% and 2.5% of total biomass every year.

Widespread use of pesticides and fertilisers, light and chemical pollution, loss of habitat and the growth of industrial agriculture have all carved into their numbers. Often, these were deaths of proximity: insects are sensitive creatures, and any nearby source of pollution can send their populations crumbling.

But what Janzen and Hallwachs are witnessing is a part of a newer phenomenon: the catastrophic collapse of insect populations in supposedly protected regions of forest. “In the parts of Costa Rica that are heavily hit by pesticides, the insects are completely wiped out,” Hallwachs says.

“But what we see here in the preserved areas – that as far as we can tell, are free of even these destructive insecticides and pesticides – even here, the insect numbers are going down horrifyingly dramatically,” she says.

Long-term data for insect populations – particularly less charismatic species – is still patchy, but Janzen and Hallwachs join a number of scientists that have recorded huge die-offs of insects in nature reserves around the world.

They include in Germany, where flying insects across 63 insect reserves dropped 75% in less than 30 years; the US, where beetle numbers dropped 83% in 45 years; and Puerto Rico, where insect biomass dropped up to 60-fold since the 1970s. These declines are occurring in ecosystems that are otherwise protected from direct human influence.

Now a rare sight

Sliding into chaos ...

Insects face an array of man-made threats, including habitat loss, climate change, light pollution, and potent new pesticides.Illustration by Armando Veve

Insect populations are crashing due to the devastating impact of man on planet earth. With this in mind, consider the impact this ongoing loss will have on mankind. Chilling without question.

The same year that Wilson published his article in Scientific American, a group of insect fanciers installed what are known as malaise traps in several nature reserves in Germany. Malaise traps look like tents that have blown over on their sides, and they’re designed to capture virtually anything that flies into them. The group, the Krefeld Entomological Society, was interested in how insects were faring in different types of parks and protected areas. Every summer from then on, society members set out new traps, usually in different preserves. In 2013, they resampled some of the sites they’d originally sampled back in 1989. The contents of the traps were a fraction of what they’d been the first time around.

Over the next three summers, the group members resampled more sites. The results were similar. In 2017, with the help of some outside experts, they published a paper documenting a seventy-five-per-cent decline in “total flying insect biomass” in the areas surveyed. These areas were exactly the sort of habitat fragments that, according to Wilson’s theory, were destined to lose species. Nevertheless, the findings were shocking. In 2019, a second group of researchers published a more rigorous and extensive study, and its findings were even more dire. In the course of just the previous decade, grasslands in Germany had, on average, lost a third of their arthropod species and two-thirds of their arthropod biomass. (Terrestrial arthropods include spiders and centipedes in addition to insects.) In woodlands, the number of arthropod species had dropped by more than a third, and biomass by forty per cent. “This is frightening” is how one of the paper’s authors, Wolfgang Weisser, a biologist at the Technical University of Munich, put it.

A tiny visitor

Insects are, of course, also vital. They’re by far the largest class of animals on Earth, with roughly a million named species and probably four times that many awaiting identification. (Robert May, an Australian scientist who helped develop the field of theoretical ecology, once noted, “To a first approximation, all species are insects.”) They support most terrestrial food chains, serve as the planet’s chief pollinators, and act as crucial decomposers. Goulson quotes Wilson’s observation: “If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed 10,000 years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”

Agreed.

We're losing these guys ...

Striking a pose

We're losing these guys ... from butterflies to bees, the impact of man regarding habitat loss, pollution, poison and over population, for starters, is eliminating insects at record pace, something being replicated all over the world for all life as the 6th great extinction, known as the Anthropogene, is well underway 24/7, a dire situation capable of ending man's reign on earth without exception.

To whit.

In my recent book, Nature Underfoot, I argue that we crush, poison, and destroy insects and their habitat at our own peril. Yet reasons for acting to prevent insect decline run much deeper than self-interest. Humans cause habitat loss, produce pesticides, and import non-native species. We bear, according to certain strands of philosophical and religious thought, responsibility for the catastrophic losses insects experience today. Some say that insects have moral value since they strive to achieve their ends, just as we and other animals do. Others argue that insects have moral value as a part of God’s creation. Scientists point to the value of insects in global ecosystems, or the value implied by tens or hundreds of thousands of years involved in the evolution of an insect species.

The insect apocalypse has captured headlines, but the situation is more nuanced than that. Scientists find an increase in the overall numbers of arthropods in the Arctic, but a decline in diversity. Certain habitats in the Arctic are also affected more than others.3 In Puerto Rico, insect declines initially attributed to climate change may have resulted instead from hurricanes.4 Some insect species have even increased in numbers—mainly those that are tolerant of human activities or that benefit from associating with humans or from climate change. 

Hanging by a thread

Apropos is it not?

Insect Apocalypse ... looms

Scientists have found a clear link between extreme land use and 

the climate crisis in pushing insect species toward collapse. 

While Americans are the leaders in not worrying about climate change, the rest of the world is not, especially when considering how rapidly the 6th great extinction event, known as the Anthropocene, is gathering speed with one focal point being the ongoing insect collapse happening 24/7 as we speak.

Extreme land use combined with warming temperatures are pushing insect ecosystems toward collapse in some parts of the world, scientists reported Wednesday.

The study, published in the journal Nature, identified for the first time a clear and alarming link between the climate crisis and high-intensity agriculture and showed that, in places where those impacts are particularly high, insect abundance has already dropped by nearly 50%, while the number of species has been slashed by 27%.

These findings raise huge concerns, according to Charlotte Outhwaite, the lead author on the study and researcher at the University College London, given the important role of insects in local ecosystems, pollination and food production, and noted that losing insects could threaten human health and food security.

"Three quarters of our crops depend on insect pollinators," Dave Goulson, a professor of biology at the University of Sussex in the UK, previously told CNN. "Crops will begin to fail. We won't have things like strawberries.

"We can't feed 7.5 billion people without insects."

This can change if we want it to.

However, the report says we can all act as first responders and take relatively simple steps to help reverse what the report describes as a "catastrophic decline in the abundance and diversity of insects."

"Insects live in our parks and gardens. Gardeners can really make a difference," he said.

He said habitat loss was the biggest culprit in declining insect populations globally, but pesticide use in farming and climate change were also contributing.

• Mow your lawn less frequently and allow part of it to flower. View weeds such as dandelions -- which are great for bees -- as wildflowers and let them grow.
• Grow plants that attract pollinators like bees and butterflies, such as lavender, catmint and buddleia.
• Make a bug hotel or provide a log or brush pile. These attract humble insects and invertebrates like woodlice, which recycle nutrients and act as food for birds and small mammals.
• Dig a pond and watch as it attracts dragonflies, pond skaters and whirligig beetles.
• Urge local authorities to plant native trees that flower on streets and parks and plant wildflowers in road medians.
• Avoid using pesticides and encourage authorities to do the same.

Brainpower

Every once in a while an article comes out that answers a question I have had in my mind for years. The question: How can insects think with such power when their brain size is miniscule at best? Now I know thanks to a post on Current Biology titled Are Bigger Brains Better?

Attempts to relate brain size to behaviour and cognition have rarely integrated information from insects with that from vertebrates. Many insects, however, demonstrate that highly differentiated motor repertoires, extensive social structures and cognition are possible with very small brains, emphasising that we need to understand the neural circuits, not just the size of brain regions, which underlie these feats. Neural network analyses show that cognitive features found in insects, such as numerosity, attention and categorisation-like processes, may require only very limited neuron numbers. Thus, brain size may have less of a relationship with behavioural repertoire and cognitive capacity than generally assumed, prompting the question of what large brains are for. Larger brains are, at least partly, a consequence of larger neurons that are necessary in large animals due to basic biophysical constraints. They also contain greater replication of neuronal circuits, adding precision to sensory processes, detail to perception, more parallel processing and enlarged storage capacity. Yet, these advantages are unlikely to produce the qualitative shifts in behaviour that are often assumed to accompany increased brain size. Instead, modularity and interconnectivity may be more important.

After reading this amazing piece, one readily understands that efficiency of brain configuration is often of greater consequence than size, something also seen in the extraordinary intelligence of parrots as seen in a earlier BRT post titled Alex, we hardly knew ye.

Not only was Alex smart, (he understood colors, categories and numbers) he also was easily bored if the experiments he participated in were not up to snuff in challenging his intellect.

Seen below is another graphic from the CB writing showing how body mass is a predictor of brain mass in animals.


As follow up, check out Physorg's perceptive take on the CB posting.

Chittka says: "In bigger brains we often don't find more complexity, just an endless repetition of the same neural circuits over and over. This might add detail to remembered images or sounds, but not add any degree of complexity.

To use a computer analogy, bigger brains might in many cases be bigger hard drives, not necessarily better processors."

This must mean that much 'advanced' thinking can actually be done with very limited neuron numbers. Computer modelling shows that even consciousness can be generated with very small neural circuits, which could in theory easily fit into an insect brain.

In fact, the models suggest that counting could be achieved with only a few hundred nerve cells and only a few thousand could be enough to generate consciousness. Engineers hope that this kind of research will lead to smarter computing with the ability to recognise human facial expressions and emotions.

“Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.” - Alan Turing

Killing me slowly/rev XXX

Biodiversity, you know, having enough flora and fauna to keep earth and us alive, is rather important to sustain unless one is in pursuit of money, an activity proving to be most disquieting in light of the fact 29% of all the birds in America (and Europe) have disappeared since 1969 as articulated in an NYTimes piece Birds Are Vanishing From North America

Baltimore Oriole

Gary Mueller, Macaulay Library at Cornell Lab of Ornithology

The new study was not designed to determine why birds are disappearing, but the results — as well as earlier research — point to some likely culprits, Dr. Rosenberg said.

Grassland species have suffered the biggest declines by far, having lost 717 million birds. These birds have probably been decimated by modern agriculture and development.

“Every field that’s plowed under, and every wetland area that’s drained, you lose the birds in that area,” Dr. Rosenberg said.

In addition to habitat loss, pesticides may have taken a toll. A study published last week, for example, found that pesticides called neonicotinoids make it harder for birds to put on weight needed for migration, delaying their travel.

But insects are in trouble also.

An annual decline of 5.2% in flying insect biomass found in nature reserves in Germany
 – about 75% loss in 26 years.[1]

Several studies report what appears to be a substantial decline in insect populations. Some of the insects most affected include bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, dragonflies and damselflies. Anecdotal evidence has been offered of much greater apparent abundance of insects in the 20th century; recollections of the windscreen phenomenon are an example.[2]

Possible causes of the decline have been identified as habitat destruction, including intensive agriculture, the use of pesticides (particularly insecticides), urbanization, and industrialization; introduced species; and climate change.[3] Not all insect orders are affected in the same way; many groups are the subject of limited research, and comparative figures from earlier decades are often not available. The decline of the scientific field of entomology may also be contributing to errors in data analysis and overgeneralization from limited findings, resulting in exaggeration of the decline in insect populations.

In 2018 the German government initiated an "Action Programme for Insect Protection",[4][5] and in 2019 a group of 27 British entomologists and ecologists wrote an open letter calling on the research establishment in the UK "to enable intensive investigation of the real threat of ecological disruption caused by insect declines without delay".[6]

And we haven't even discussed the decline of life in the oceans due to pollution, climate change and overfishing.

Killing me slowly ...

For the past couple of months, yours truly has tried to focus on the essential terrestrial organisms that, if eliminated from the environment, would cause environmental collapse. With this in mind, insects are prime candidates as they inhabit every continent (including Antarctica's Belgica antarctica, the Antarctic midge) and are intimately involved with all aspects of life on this planet as we know it. Note: We haven't even talked about the sea and land-based microfauna and flora, the baseline lifeforms on which all life on this planet depends. Note II: The oceans are not part of this blurb although it too is under the same amount of manmade stress as well.

Because insects are legion, inconspicuous and hard to meaningfully track, the fear that there might be far fewer than before was more felt than documented. People noticed it by canals or in backyards or under streetlights at night — familiar places that had become unfamiliarly empty. The feeling was so common that entomologists developed a shorthand for it, named for the way many people first began to notice that they weren’t seeing as many bugs. They called it the windshield phenomenon.

When the investigators began planning the study in 2016, they weren’t sure if anyone would sign up. But by the time the nets were ready, a paper by an obscure German entomological society had brought the problem of insect decline into sharp focus. The German study found that, measured simply by weight, the overall abundance of flying insects in German nature reserves had decreased by 75 percent over just 27 years. If you looked at midsummer population peaks, the drop was 82 percent.

Let's think about this while reading Bill McKibben's  in-depth New Yorker article stating the fact earth, in terms of arable use, is shrinking every day due to GW, environmental degradation and resource depletion.

The poorest and most vulnerable will pay the highest price. But already, even in the most affluent areas, many of us hesitate to walk across a grassy meadow because of the proliferation of ticks bearing Lyme disease which have come with the hot weather; we have found ourselves unable to swim off beaches, because jellyfish, which thrive as warming seas kill off other marine life, have taken over the water. The planet’s diameter will remain eight thousand miles, and its surface will still cover two hundred million square miles. But the earth, for humans, has begun to shrink, under our feet and in our minds.

The Anthropocene is gathering speed as we speak.

Killing me slowly indeed.

Like a pane of glass :)

 

To this beetle, water's like a pane of glass.

Being quite small, insects can have a very different relationship with the water-air interface than larger animals do. Surface tension allows for insects like water striders to skate along the top of still waters, for example. But new research reveals an unusual way to tread along this boundary: from the underside. 

A water-dwelling beetle can scuttle upside-down along the underside of the water’s surface, as if the water were a solid pane of glass, researchers report June 28 in Ethology. It’s the first detailed documentation of a beetle moving in this manner, which is known only in precious few animal groups.

Minute moss beetles (one pictured) can reportedly walk along the underside of the water’s surface, a rare ability in the animal kingdom. UDO SCHMIDT/FLICKR (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The poles beckon

If anyone wants to dispute global warming, first check out what other species are doing to escape the heat. In terms of heading toward the poles, marine denizens are in the lead save for insects.

We know that global warming is forcing many animals around the world to flee their normal habitats, but now, an exhaustive analysis has shown marine species are booking it for the poles six times faster than those on land.

In the review, amphibians were found to be moving up slope at over 12 metres a year, while reptiles seem to be headed towards the equator at 6.5 metres a year.

Insects, which incidentally carry many diseases, were found to be moving poleward at 18.5 kilometres per year.

This discrepancy between land and water could exist for several reasons. It might, for instance, be a product of temperature sensitivity. Air conducts heat 25 times less effectively than water, and many land animals can easily regulate their body temperature if they want.

On the move says it all.

10 Months

Watching swifts do a number on insects over an open field is a transcendent experience of seeing how flight becomes magical in a tiny bird that fits in the palm of one hand. What's even more astounding is the fact they can fly for nearly 10 months without touching the ground.

Scientists had long ago proposed that common swifts, a medium-sized migratory bird, might spend most of their lives in flight, but it is only now that it is proved that these birds can actually fly for 10 months straight.

"This discovery significantly pushes the boundaries for what we know about animal physiology," lead author Anders Hedenstrom of Lund University in Sweden, said in a statement on Saturday.

"A 10-month flight phase is the longest we know of any bird species -- it's a record."

Previously, scientists have found frigate birds and alpine swifts can remain in flight for up to seven months.

"They feed in the air, they mate in the air, they get nest material in the air," researcher Susanne Åkesson from Lund University in Sweden tells National Geographic. "They can land on nest boxes, branches, or houses, but they can't really land on the ground."

The birds' shape contributes to this finding; their "wings are too long and their legs are too short to take off from a flat surface," the magazine reports.

The researchers suggest that one driving force behind the bird's incredibly long flights could be its diet. "[S]pecializing in high-altitude aerial insects as a main food source requires the suite of adaptations for efficient flight shown by swifts, ... which compromises terrestrial locomotion and make swifts vulnerable to predators and parasites had they been landing more often," the paper states.

On a Wing but Nota Prayer :) is a BRT piece on the Frigate Bird, the 2nd greatest flyer in the world.

Not just insects ...

 Populations of sea lion pups have dropped 64% in Australia. Matthew Dickstein / Getty Images

It's not just insects ... it's all wildlife as the 6th extinction goes primetime in the year of our lord 2022. The acceleration of GW is not only terrifying, its inevitable as phase transitions are never linear as seen by when a pond freezes over as the day before, said pond is 50% ice free. Nothing of significance is being done to reduce fossil fuel burning as it takes a catastrophe of momental proportions for man to change. For yours truly, a wet bulb event in India, as articulated in The Ministry of the Future, works but one fears it will well before 2050 given just how fast GW is accelerating thanks, in large part, to the loss of albedo in the arctic. 

The percentage of diffusely reflected sunlight relative to various surface conditions

“Today we face the double, interlinked emergencies of human-induced climate change and the loss of biodiversity, threatening the well-being of current and future generations.”

So begins the executive summary of the Living Planet Report 2022. Released every two years by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the study examines global biodiversity and the health of the planet. The latest report reveals an average 69% drop in world vertebrate species in less than 50 years.

We can make a difference but it must happen now.

But there have been some promising discoveries with species that have been recovering.

The population of loggerhead turtle nests grew by 500% on the coast of Chrysochou Bay in Cyprus from 1999 to 2015. Credit conservation efforts that include relocating nests and using cages to protect others from predators. 

Conservation measures have also helped mountain gorillas. In the Virunga Mountains along the northern border of Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda, populations of mountain gorillas increased to 604 animals, up from 480 gorillas in 2010.

Author Kim Stanley Robinson

75% ...

Habitat destruction combined with pesticide use, what could possibly go wrong?

The number of flying insects has plummeted by 75 percent in the last 25 years, according to a study that suggests we are approaching an “ecological Armageddon”. 

The implications for humanity are profound, with insects providing an essential role for life on earth as pollinators of plants and prey for larger animals.  

Although it was known species such as bees and butterflies were declining, scientists were left shocked by the drop in numbers across nature reserves in Germany.

While no single cause was identified, the widespread destruction of wild areas for agriculture and the use of pesticides are considered likely factors. Climate change was also cited as playing a potential role. 

Note: This data was garnered in 2017, which means the loss of insect populations could be even higher.

Hidden benefits ...

Tarantula hawk dragging a paralysed orange-kneed tarantula, Costa Rica

Wasps, you know, yellow jackets, hornets and the solitaries like the Tarantula hawk seen above, are loathed because they sting but ... there are hidden benefits to these fearsome creatures as they maintain environmental balance by keeping the population of a multitude of pests under control. 

For those who have asked what the point of wasps is, there is now a comprehensive answer. They are voracious predators of pest insects, produce powerful antibiotics in their venom, pollinate plants and even make a nutritious snack.

The benefits to humans of the much-hated insects are revealed in the first major scientific review of the ecosystem services they provide. It focused on the 33,000 known species of hunting wasps, which carry stings and live in every corner of the world.

Yellowjackets and hornets, the picnic pests that have given wasps a bad name, make up a small proportion of all wasp species. But even they provide help that is little known, such as hoovering up caterpillars on vegetable patches. Yellowjacket venom is also being investigated as a promising cancer treatment.

The study, published in the journal Biological Reviews, analysed 500 scientific reports on stinging wasps. There are 100,000 known wasp species, but 70,000 are parasitic, which are stingless and quite well studied. They are already used in farming to control pests without using insecticides. There are about 22,000 species of bees. “Wasps are the ancestor of bees, so bees are wasps that have forgotten how to hunt,” said Sumner.

Click here for the PDF of the study.

Sticky Feet

Gecko Tape may have a competitor in Sticky Feet, a reusable, washable tape able to adhere to dusty surfaces without a problem because scientists have finally learned how insects stick to walls.

"researchers call the material “insect tape” because its adhesive properties come from a pattern of microstructures that are inspired by insect feet. The team, composed of evolutionary biomaterials researchers from the Max Planck Institute (MPI) in Stuttgart, Germany, and biologically inspired robotics researchers from Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, US, analyzed more than 300 different species of insects to determine the optimal properties for a man-made adhesive."

Needless to say, this product will sell like crazy if it works as intended and the price point makes the item affordable.

Addendum: I bet Sticky Feet will be one of the monikers manufacturers use when marketing this product, especially if they use an outrageous graphic like the one seen at the top of this article. "Insect Tape" just doesn't cut it in these days of excessive hype and endless sloganeering.

Mosquito Coffee ... :)

An amazing portrait of the deadliest animal on planet earth, the mosquito, carriers of some of the deadliest diseases known to man & beast, has kept the secret of their success for finding prey for eons, until now. 

Geneticists have found a scent-sniffer protein molecule in mosquito antennae that — if somehow jammed — might leave a bloodsucker confused about whether we’re human enough to bite.

Insects evolved odor detection separately from vertebrates, and the six-legged version is “very complex,” DeGennaro says. Mosquitoes rely on three families of odor-sniffing proteins that have overlapping abilities to identify groups of airborne chemical compounds. Proteins called ionotropic receptors, which include IR8a, target acids among other compounds. As a mosquito hunts, the floating chemical cues get combined with other information such as atmospheric heat, moisture and the sight of something biteable. DeGennaro calls carbon dioxide “mosquito coffee,” revving the insects up to get to work seeking a meal. 

As an aside, yours truly, unlike his beloved wife, exudes a succulent scent, able to draw in expectant mother mosquitoes in ways that truly boggle the mind. :)

State of Play - Summer 2021

State of Play shows summer's endgame where insects, birds and the environment itself begins the changeover into fall and winter. One has to hunt for insects and birds as there's fewer now along with the fact field grasses are shorter with less variety of plant life to be seen. Hopefully, this clip shows just how beautiful earth is when one takes the time to look. Enjoy.

Links

Being a firm believer in the quantum and the interconnectedness of things, the Physorg post titled

Foundational Concept of Ecology Tested by Experiment peaked this writer's interest as it focuses on the role of invasives in a given environment, a subject delved into at great length for many years by a close friend.

The scientists were able to track the effect of the loosestrife flowers across four trophic levels, or levels in the food web, and two ecosystems, the terrestrial and the aquatic ones.

The links worked as follows: Wetlands with abundant flowers attracted more pollinating insects; the insects in turn attracted more of the carnivorous dragonflies; the well-nourished dragonflies laid more eggs in the central ponds; the voracious dragonfly larvae that hatched from the eggs altered the diversity of the zooplankton communities in the ponds.

In an unexpected turn, flowering loosestrife actually increased zooplankton species richness, perhaps, speculates Smith, because they preferentially ate a dominant zooplankton species, releasing others from competition.

"To be honest," Smith says, "although the increase in zooplankton diversity is interesting and surprising, I don't think that specific detail matters too much. Nor, is the point simply that purple loosestrife might be affecting aquatic ecosystems, although that is important from a management perspective.

"What matters is that we showed the interconnections are actually strong enough to transmit disturbances through and across webs. We pushed on one link and something four links away in another ecosystem moved."

When looking at this, it makes eminent sense as the quantum is connected, where everything is linked to everything else, where probabilities rule along with black swans and, most importantly, why biodiversity must be preserved at all costs if we are to remain a viable species in an increasingly polluted and over populated planet.

Addendum: Elementary school kids did the experiments while researchers tagged along, finding out nature always surprises, without question. :)

Dragonfly larva, a predator supreme

Social Distancing ... Lobster style

Seems insects, lobsters, fish, birds and primates socially distance themselves whenever any of their brethren catch a disease threatening their well being, something not being done by a significant portion of the population risking possible death while bitching about losing their inherent freedom to be stupid by not social distancing or wearing a mask while spreading said disease to others as seen in the COVID-19 debacle in the good ole USA.

On a shallow reef in the Florida Keys, a young Caribbean spiny lobster returns from a night of foraging for tasty mollusks and enters its narrow den. Lobsters usually share these rocky crevices, and tonight a new one has wandered in. Something about the newcomer is not right, though. Chemicals in its urine smell different. These substances are produced when a lobster is infected with a contagious virus called Panulirus argus virus 1, and the healthy returning lobster seems alarmed. As hard as it is to find a den like this one, protected from predators, the young animal backs out, into open waters and away from the deadly virus.

The lobster’s response to disease—seen in both field and laboratory experiments—is one we have become all too familiar with this year: social distancing. People’s close interactions with family and friends have been cut off to reduce the spread of COVID-19. It has been extremely hard. And many have questioned the necessity. Yet despite how unnatural it may feel to us, social distancing is very much a part of the natural world. In addition to lobsters, animals as diverse as monkeys, fishes, insects and birds detect and distance themselves from sick members of their species.

Any questions?