flying insects

Spiders And Pest Control | Earth Wise

April 5, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Climate change facilitates the spread of invasive pest species by expanding their habitable environment ranges. In conventional agriculture, farmers depend on chemical pesticides to control agricultural pests. But 99% of all synthetic chemicals, including pesticides, are made from fossil fuels, and turning petrochemicals into pesticides requires massive amounts of energy. These chemical pesticides also pollute the air and water, and destroy biodiversity by killing many non-target species as well.

According to new research led by scientists from the University of Portsmouth in the U.K., groups of spiders could be used as an environmentally-friendly way to protect crops against agricultural pests. The study, which was recently published in the journal Insects, suggests that web-building groups of spiders can be used to control populations of the tomato leafminer moth, a devastating pest of commercially important crops like tomatoes and potatoes.

The research team explored the use of tropical tent spiders for this pest control. They are found in colonies around the world, and their range overlaps with regions of moth infestations, including Mediterranean Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

In lab settings, different types of prey were introduced to colonies of spiders of varying body sizes. The research team found that the larger spiders built larger webs and caught more prey, including tomato leafminer moths and fruit flies.

Tropical tent spiders could be an effective and climate-friendly way to control flying insect pests. However, more research is needed to ensure that these spiders don’t negatively impact crop pollination by also catching pollinators.

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Using spiders as environmentally-friendly pest control

Photo, posted June 10, 2018, courtesy of Lies Van Rompaey via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Declining Flying Insects | Earth Wise

June 30, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In recent years, there has been increasing awareness of the global decline in insect abundance. A recently published survey of the abundance of flying insects in the UK has revealed very troubling results.

The Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife – two UK-based conservation groups – compared the number of dead insects on vehicles in 2004 and 2021. In this Bugs Matter Citizen Science Survey, the data was collected by roughly 20,000 ordinary citizens using a smartphone app.

The results were that the number of flying insects in Britain dropped nearly 60% over that time period. The insects declined most in England and Wales, with drops of 65% and 55%, respectively.

It is possible that 2004 was a particularly good year for British insects and 2021 an especially bad one, but the findings of this study are consistent with other research around the world showing an alarming decline in insects. A series of studies in 2019 found that the global mass of insects is shrinking by 2.5% a year and that insects are going extinct eight times faster than reptiles, birds, or mammals.

Insects face multiple overlapping threats including the destruction of wild habitats for farming, urbanization, pesticides, and light pollution. On top of these things is climate change which is disrupting ecosystems in multiple ways.

Insects play a vital role in pollinating crops, consuming organic waste, killing pests, and as essential parts of multiple ecosystems. Severe insect declines can potentially have dire global ecological and economic consequences.

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Flying Insects Have Declined by 60 Percent in the U.K., Survey Finds

Insect decline in the Anthropocene: Death by a thousand cuts

Photo, posted May 6, 2007, courtesy of Richard Giddins via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Microplastics And Humans

November 27, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Microplastics are everywhere. The tiny plastic particles pose a massive environmental challenge. Microplastics are polluting oceans at an alarming rate. Much of the oceanic microplastics result from the breakdown of plastic litter. Another source of microplastics pollution is microbeads. Microbeads, which are commonly added to cleansing and exfoliating personal care products, pollute the environment when they get flushed down the drain.

A Decline In Flying Insects

November 23, 2017 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

When was the last time you used a squeegee to remove squashed insects from your windshield? It’s been a while, right? It’s not just you. This is known as the windscreen phenomenon. Scientists and some motorists have long suspected that flying insects are in dramatic decline. New research has confirmed these suspicions.