Climate change and intensive agriculture have already halved the number of people. vermin in vast areas of the planet. The pests are common in many insect species and primarily affect the tropics. Scientists stress the urgency of taking action to protect natural habitats, curb the expansion of high-intensity agriculture and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate climate change.
“The interaction between historical climatic warming rates and intensive agricultural land use, 49% reduction in abundance and 27% reduction in the number of insect speciesIn some parts of the world, it collects a study led by experts from the Center for Biodiversity and Environmental Studies at University College London (UCL).
The study, published in the journal ‘Nature’, is the first to describe it. Interaction between rising temperatures and changes in land use is destroying large groups of insects worldwide.
The results leave no room for doubt: where there is sufficient natural habitat, the abundance and richness among insects is reduced by ‘only’ between 5% and 7%. Meanwhile, reductions were between 61% and 63% in areas with less natural habitat.
“Our results show that Insect biodiversity is likely to benefit from climate change mitigation, conservation of natural habitats within landscapes, and reductions in agriculture intensity.“, beware researchers.
Vulnerable to human pressures
Patterns of reduced abundance and richness of insect groups are particularly evident in the tropical realm. Against this, The few positive responses of biodiversity to climate change occur in the natural habitats of non-tropical regions..
“High availability of nearby natural habitats reduces reductions in insect abundance and richness often associated with agricultural land use and significant climate warming, but only in low-density farming systems,” the researchers stress.
Charlie Outhwaite, one of the study’s lead authors, notes that many insects are highly vulnerable to human pressure, and this is “related to the worsening of climate change and the continued expansion of farmland.”
Outhwaite points out it is urgent to protect natural habitats, stop the spread of intensive agriculture and reduce polluting emissions.
Why is it important to protect insects? The loss of their populations “not only affects the natural environment in which they play an important role in local ecosystems, but also can harm human health and food safetyespecially with the loss of pollinators.”
“Our findings may only represent the tip of the iceberg, there may be other areas with higher losses in insect biodiversity“, Outhwaite warns. The researchers analyzed a substantial dataset on the abundance and richness of insects in different parts of the world, including records of three-quarters of a million from nearly 20,000 species.
The team compared insect biodiversity in different areas based on the intensity of agriculture and the historical climate warming experienced.
Natural habitat loss buffers
The scientists found that in areas with high-intensity agriculture and significant climate warming, the number of insects was 49% lower than in most natural habitats where no climate warming was recorded, while the number of different species was 29%.
“Tropical regions experienced the largest declines in biodiversity the number of insects associated with land use and climate change,” the authors underline.
In areas of low-intensity agriculture and significant climate warming, researchers having a natural habitat nearby buffered the losses: Where 75% of the land is covered by natural habitat, insect abundance decreases by only 7%, compared to 63% reduction in comparable areas with only 25% natural habitat.
One explanation is that many insects rely on plants for shade on hot days, so the loss of their natural habitat makes them more vulnerable to heat.
But the authors believe that the problem may still be very seriousand the reduction of insects due to human influence may be even greater than their findings suggest, as many areas with a long history of human influence would have already experienced. biodiversity losses before the start of the study period. Additionally, a study that did not consider the effects of other factors on insects, for example pollution.
“The environmental damage of high-intensity agriculture, hard challenge “As we try to meet the food demands of a growing population,” said Tim Newbold, another lead author of the study.
The danger of agricultural expansion
“We discovered earlier that pollinating insects are particularly vulnerable to agricultural expansion“Because they appear more than 70% less abundant in high-density farmland than in wild areas,” Newbold says.
research advocates “careful management” of farmland and conserving natural habitats near farmland, he estimates, these actions could help “so that vital insects can still thrive.”
Peter McCann, co-first author of the study, said that further study the importance of insects for the environment in general and human health and well-being in particularwith the aim of “tackling these threats before many species are lost forever”.
Scientists at the UCL Center for Biodiversity and Environmental Studies The cutting edge of research on human impacts on the planet; for example, by developing the science behind the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, which measures extinction risk, and Changes in land use may be increasing the risk of epidemics of diseases such as covid-19 spreading from animals to humans.
Reference report: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04644-x
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