What happened to the insects?

This year we’ve witnessed a massive reduction in the number of insects nationally – to such an extent that even the national media have been asking what has happened to all the insects / bees / butterflies?! 

Well, the answer is simple but also complicated. Like so many issues to do with the world around us, lots of different factors affect the end result. Some of these are: 

  1. The horrendous wet / cold start to the year – pretty much  6 months of much lower temperatures and much higher rainfall than average. This will have caused the loss of many insects that were in hibernation as they were killed by being flooded out or from higher rates of disease and fungal attack. More of those that did hatch would have died directly from the cold and the wet too.
  2. This coming on the back of over a decade of years which all seemed to have their own extreme weather which included hot dry period, culminating in the high temperatures and drought of 2022. But we have also had more flooding in some areas; too dry in other areas … mild winters, cool summers. This is all suspected to be a side effect of global climate change, as the more energy (heat) you trap in the atmosphere, the more violently you find the pendulum swings from one extreme to another. Each of these events adversely affects insects in different ways – if they make it through one event they might be hit by the opposite extreme.
  3. The amount of different habitats and their quality has been degraded for 100 years or more as we strove for more and more productive farms and expanded our impact on the countryside buy building over habitats and reducing their quality. Green-field and brown-field land is generally cheap to buy and develop on, while it costs a lot more to build in urban areas.
  4. There has also always been money to make money by building or developing but restoring habitats and preserving land which then doesn’t earn a profit will not easily attract funding. We need a political movement that values the countryside and habitats that seem unprofitable but which actually provide unrecognised services to us – they might catch and hold water so that we don’t need to provide flood defences in towns along rivers or they might provide the oxygen we breathe and the wild spaces that we enjoy to relax in. Politicians are too short-termist and we need to change that – think millenia, not in 5-year blocks.
  5. The countryside has also become more and more fragmented as we build new roads, new industrial and urban areas. This has been a slow drip, drip effect over many decades but wildlife can more to replenish other areas or to breed with neighbouring colonies if they have corridors of habitat but the more disconnected different populations are from each other the less they can help each other out. 

The upshot is that when individual populations are knocked back by an event, there are now fewer satelite colonies that can move to repopulate the habitat and there is also less movement of genes around the countryside, meaning that we have genetic bottlenecks that produce strains that are less nimble and unable to adapt to changing circumstances. 

So, what can we do? 

Go back to the basics – do what ecologists and scientists have been sayign for decades:

  1. Act locally by managing land under your control sympathetically for nature:
    1. Plant native species – even though most plants provide some help to our local wildlife, it’s the native species that we are missing most because our wildlife has evolved alongside them. 
    2. Provide nectar sources all year round – different pollinators emerge throughout the year and they need flowers throughout that period so plan your space to provide different nectar rich flowers at all times.
    3. Create nesting areas and habitats for hibernating species – log piles, rickety old sheds or insect hotels all help a little bit to give species a place to hide. 
    4. Put in water – even if it’s just a bucket pond it will provide a small place for invertebrates to breed and to live.
    5. Hedge the boundary, don’t just use hard fencing and use real grass not synthetic – should go without saying.
  2. Support local causes:
    1. Volunteer on your local nature reserves – local land owners are probably desperate for help to manage their land and it can be great fun to get out and meet people. 
    2. Support green causes in your area either financially or physically if you can. Many wildlife organisations are desperately short of funds and are always looking for help in fund raising both directly and indirectly.
  3. Petition your government to support green policies:
    1. Decrease fossil fuel usage by using subsidies and tax incentives to change behaviour
    2. Provide cheap and reliable public transport to decrease car use 
    3. Put more money into promoting the preservation, management & restoration of valuable habitats. We need to think less about farm subsidies and more about encouraging nature positive behaviour from all land owners. 

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