Tag Archives: Insect Decline

Does Repeated, Lethal Sampling Contribute to Insect Declines?

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Over the past few months, I have shared data on bees and other insects that we have collected from Portland-area gardens. For every garden insect we study (except for butterflies, which can be identified to species by sight), we use lethal collection methods. This is because most insects can only be identified to species after close examination under the microscope. In fact, some insects require dissection before we can get them to species.

Bombus sitkensis male, with abdomen dissected, in order to make a species-level identification.

It seems odd that we kill bees in order to help understand how we can build gardens that can help to conserve bees. By collecting and killing bees and other insects, what role were we playing in promoting insect decline? How do projects, such as our own as well as the Oregon Bee Atlas, factor into bee declines?

That’s an excellent question, and one that we often ask ourselves. When we collect bees, we work to make sure that we are not needlessly causing harm. For example, our pan traps are good for collecting small bees, but are not good at collecting larger bees, including reproductive queens. When we hand-collect bees, we avoid taking queen bees. In fact, of the 2,716 bees that we collected in 2017-2019, only three were queens. We limited our sampling frequency to three times per year, and limited our sampling effort to 10 minutes of hand-collecting time and six pan traps, per garden. Even with these precautions, we are still faced with the question: does our research, or the research of others who collect and kill insects, harm the very species we are trying to conserve?

Water pan traps, used to collect garden bees and other small, flying insects. Insects are attracted to the color. When they land in the soapy water, they break the surface tension, drown, and die.

To address this question, I turn to the scientific literature. Gezon and colleagues set up an experiment to see whether lethal sampling for bees using pan traps and netting (the same methods we use in our research) has negative effects on bee abundance or bee diversity. For five years, they sampled nine sites every two weeks during the flowering season. They compared bee abundance and bee diversity in these repeatedly-sampled sites, to metrics from 17 comparable sites that were only sampled once. They found no significant difference in bee capture rate, bee species richness, or bee abundance between sites that were sampled repeatedly versus those that were sampled once. When they partitioned bees according to nesting habit (e.g. cavity, soil, wood, etc.), social structure (e.g. eusocial or not), and body size (e.g. small, medium, and large bees) they also found no significant differences in bee capture rates of single-sample versus repeat-sampled sites. They did catch more pollen specialists in repeated-sample sites than in single sample sites. However, the magnitude of the effect was relatively small, and did not represent a large change in catch rate between single-sample versus repeat-sampled sites. I suspect that the authors caught more pollen specialists at their repeat-sampled sites, because pollen specialists are fairly rare in time and in space. They drastically increased their odds of intercepting a pollen specialist on their repeatedly-sampled sites.

Gezon and colleagues suggest a few hypotheses that could explain why increased sampling effort had no significant effect on bee abundance or diversity. First, they suggest that reducing bee populations by sampling could benefit the bees that remain, by reducing competition for limited resources. If this is the case, bee populations can compensate for some losses due to sampling, by increasing reproduction in the bees that remain behind. Second, they note that if bees were sampled after they have mated and laid eggs, the overall impact of removing a bee from via sampling will be fairly small. Finally, they note that most bees are solitary, and that most solitary bees have short flight seasons. In this case, sampling every two weeks may not result in bee declines, if researchers are effectively collecting a new species during each sampling event.

I can breathe a bit easier. The data suggests that our research is not immediately responsible for documented bee declines. Still, I know that I can personally do more to help protect bees in my own garden. Even though our lab group studies native plants, I have not yet planted Aster subspicatus (Douglas’ Aster) in my own garden. This will be my mission for 2020: to find and plant this gorgeous perennial at home. In 2018 and 2019, it bloomed from mid June through mid November at our study plots in Aurora, OR, with peak bloom (75% or more of the plant in bloom) lasting one month! And, from 2017-2019, it was always a top five plant for native bee abundance. I give this Pacific Northwest native plant my highest recommendation for home gardens! There are plants that attract more native bees, such as Phacelia heterophylla. But, no other plant that we studied offers the triple threat of beauty, bees, and longevity.

Douglas’ aster (Aster subspicatus) is currently my favorite garden plant for bees.

Is the Insect Apocalypse Upon Us?

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With all due respect to Beyonce, insects were recognized as ‘The Little Things that Run the World‘ by entomologist E.O. Wilson, decades before Beyonce’s 2011 hit song. As Wilson wrote in his iconic perspective piece:

The truth is that we need invertebrates but they don’t need us. If human beings were to disappear tomorrow, the world would go on with little change.

In fact, Wilson noted, the Earth ‘would set about healing itself‘. But if invertebrates were to disappear, Wilson predicts that ‘I doubt the human species could last more than a few months‘.

 

California Tortoiseshell, taken in a Portland-area garden on August 22, 2017.

Insects, the most abundant and numerous of all invertebrate animals, play a particularly important role in our world and in our life. Not counting the enormous contributions of non-native honey bees, which annually help to bring $235 and $577 billion dollar worth of food to the global market, native insects contribute $71 billion dollars (inflation adjusted to 2019) worth of ecological services to our economy and to our society.

So what are we to make of the recent NY Times article entitled ‘The Insect Apocalypse is Here‘, or the Atlantic article entitled ‘Is the Insect Apocalypse Really Upon Us?’.

These articles covered recent science papers that have caused a lot of concern, and generated a lot of attention. In the ENT 518 class that I am teaching this term (Current Topics in Entomology), our class spent time dissecting and discussing the science papers, as well as popular press coverage of each study.

The first paper, published in 2017 by Hallman and colleagues, documented a 76% decline in insect biomass over a time period spanning nearly three decades. In the peak summer season, the decline was even larger (82%). These researchers had been sampling protected areas in Germany using Malaise traps. This group is working to identify the insects that they collect ~ but, because it takes so much time and specialized expertise to identify most insects to species ~ they also took data on the collective weight of the insects that they collected. This is how they were able to show a 76% decline in insect biomass, between 1989 and 2016.

Mardon Skipper taken in a Portland-area garden on August 22, 2017.

What caused this massive decline in insect biomass? To address this question, They constructed a series of models to try and identify what factors might explain this precipitous drop in insect biomass (which is being used a proxy for insect abundance). They did not find evidence (from their mathematical models) that climate factors (e.g. temperature, precipitation, wind speed), habitat factors (e.g. site conditions, plant species), or habitat factors (e.g. amount of forest, grassland, water) were responsible for insect declines. Because they did not find evidence that climate change, landscape conversions, or habitat changes reduced insect biomass, they concluded that factors which they did not measure were responsible for insect declines. Specifically, they hypothesize that agricultural intensification (pesticide use, year round tillage, increased use of fertilizers) was a plausible cause.

Students taking the ENT 518 class were mostly convinced that the researchers had documented a large and significant decrease in insect biomass over the time period of the study. Students agreed that the loss of biomass reflects a loss in insect abundance, and probably reflects a loss of insect diversity. Students were more reserved in their assessment of the authors’ suggestion that agricultural intensification was the cause of the decline. Although they agreed that it is a plausible explanation, they wanted to see data to address this hypothesis, rather than having the authors arrive at this conclusion because they eliminated other potential causes of insect decline (e.g. climate change, landscape conversion, habitat change).

Western Tiger Swallowtail, taken in a Portland-area garden on July 27, 2017.

The second paper, published in 2019 by Sanchez-Bayo and Wyckhuys, was a review of other papers that studied insect declines. The authors searched science databases for the words ‘insect’ AND ‘decline’ AND ‘survey’, and then reviewed the hundreds of papers (653!) that they found to limit their survey to 73 long-term studies that took place for 10 years of more. The authors then summarize the details of each study, according to major insect groups (e.g. butterflies, bees, beetles, flies). Ultimately, they report that 41% of all insects are in decline, and that across all insect species, the annual rate of decline is 1% per year, and the annual rate of insect extinction is 1% per year. Like the Hallman et al. paper, Sanchez-Bayo and Wyckhuys suggest that agriculture is to blame:

‘Overall, the systemic, widespread and often superfluous use of pesticides in agricultural and pasture land over the past 60 years has negatively impacted most organisms, from insects to birds to bats . . ‘.

The students in ENT 518 honed in on the fact that the authors searched for the words ‘insect’ AND ‘decline’. Accordingly, there was a level of bias in their search procedures. Students seemed convinced that many insect groups are in decline, but were less willing to agree that the overall level of decline, rate of decline, and rate of extinction reported by the authors were accurate estimates. In addition, although students agree that pesticide use is likely to blame for insect declines, they would have been more convinced, if there were better data tying the two together.

Students then discussed how the science papers were translated into a narrative for the NY Times and Atlantic articles. We talked about the elements of a story, and how as scientists, we don’t worry about setting the scene, developing characters, or of conflict in a plot. But, many of us are also science communicators via our work in Extension or through other outreach efforts. If we can paint a picture that people can relate to ~ if we can get them to notice and to share their experience with noticing fewer insects in their yard or their town ~ will they care more about insect conservation?

One of the major reasons that we do the work that we do in the Garden Ecology Lab is because we believe that how we manage our gardens can truly make a difference to insect conservation. If we can take better notice of those ‘little things that run the world’ and share these experiences with our friends and family . . . will that make a difference? I believe that it will. In fact, it is the reason that I come to work, each and every day, excited to learn more about how we can make this world a better place through gardening.