• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Saturday, October 4, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Biology

Insect decline more extensive than suspected

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
October 30, 2019
in Biology
Reading Time: 4 mins read
0
IMAGE
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Causes of insect decline and biodiversity loss to be found at the landscape level

IMAGE

Credit: Dr. Ulrike Garbe / Landesamt für Umwelt, Brandenburg


Compared to a decade ago, today the number of insect species on many areas has decreased by about one third. This is the result of a survey of an international research team led by scientists from the Technical University of Munich (TUM). The loss of species mainly affects grasslands in the vicinity of intensively farmed land – but also applies to forests and protected areas.

Various studies have already demonstrated that there are far fewer creatures chirping, buzzing, creeping and fluttering in German meadows today than 25 years ago. “Previous studies, however, either focused exclusively on biomass, i.e. the total weight of all insects, or on individual species or species groups. The fact that a large part of all insect groups is actually affected has not been clear so far,” says Dr. Sebastian Seibold, a scientist with the Terrestrial Ecology Research Group at TUM.

In a large-scale biodiversity study, an international research team headed by scientists at TUM surveyed a large number of insect groups in Brandenburg, Thuringia and Baden-Württemberg between 2008 and 2017. Now the team has published its analysis in the scientific journal Nature.

Insects affected both in grasslands and forests

The researchers collected more than one million insects at 300 sites. They were able to prove that many of the nearly 2700 investigated species are in decline. In recent years, certain rare species could no longer be found in some of the regions studied. Both in forested areas and grasslands, the scientists counted about one third fewer insect species after 10 years.

“Before our survey it was unclear whether and to what extent forests were affected by the insect decline as well,” says Seibold. Since 2008 they measured a decrease of approximately 40 percent in insect biomass in the forests they studied. In grasslands the results were even more alarming: at the end of the study period, the insect biomass decreased to only one third of its former level.

“A decline on that scale over a period of just 10 years came as a complete surprise to us – it is frightening, but fits the picture presented in a growing number of studies,” says Wolfgang Weisser, professor of Terrestrial Ecology at TUM and a co-initiator of the cooperative project.

The decisive factor: the immediate surroundings

Every type of forest and grassland site studied by the team was affected: sheep pastures, meadows that are mowed and fertilized three to four times per year, forestry dominated coniferous forests and even unused forests in protected areas. The researchers identified the biggest losses in grasslands surrounded by intensively farmed land, where the most heavily impacted species were those unable to travel far.

In the forested areas, by contrast, the hardest-hit insect groups were those that cover long distances. “To decide whether it is a matter of the more mobile forest-dwelling species having more contact with agriculture, or whether it has something to do with living conditions in the forests, further study will be needed,” said the former TUM researcher Dr. Martin Gossner.

Standalone initiatives have little prospect of success

“Current initiatives to address insect losses are overly concerned with the cultivation of individual plots of land and operate independently of one another for the most part,” says Dr. Seibold. “To stop the decline, however, our results indicate that more coordination is needed at the regional and national levels.”

###

The study was carried out under a Germany-wide cooperative project, the Biodiversity Exploratories. This open research platform is financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Researchers from and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (Jena, Germany), the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL (Birmensdorf, Switzerland), the Universities of Bern (Switzerland), Düzce (Turkey), Salzburg (Austria), as well as the Universities of Darmstadt, Freiburg, Göttingen, Marburg, TU Munich and Würzburg, in Germany were involved.

The scientists in the project are exploring such issues as the possible interactions between different elements of biodiversity – for example between plant and insect diversity. The project is also exploring the effects of different forms of land use on biodiversity and the processes within an ecosystem.

Publication:

Seibold, S., Gossner, M.M., Simons, N.K., Blüthgen, N., Müller, J., Ambarli, D., Ammer, C., Bauhus, J., Fischer, M., Habel, J.C., Linsenmair, K.E., Nauss, T., Penone, C., Prati, D., Schall, P., Schulze, E.-D., Vogt, J., Wöllauer, S. & Weisser, W.W.

Arthropod decline in grasslands and forests is associated with drivers at landscape level

Nature, Oct. 30, 2019

Media Contact
Dr. Andreas Battenberg
[email protected]
49-892-891-0510

Original Source

https://www.tum.de/nc/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/details/35768/

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1684-3

Tags: Agricultural Production/EconomicsAgricultureBiodiversityBiologyEarth ScienceEcology/EnvironmentForestryPopulation BiologyZoology/Veterinary Science
Share13Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

“Rice Cultivar Transcriptome Reveals Heat Stress Response Genes”

“Rice Cultivar Transcriptome Reveals Heat Stress Response Genes”

October 4, 2025
blank

Revolutionary Graph Network Enhances Protein Interaction Prediction

October 4, 2025

DOG Gene Family in Wheat Drives Seed Dormancy

October 4, 2025

Discovery of MrSTP20: Sugar Transporter in Salt Stress

October 4, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    94 shares
    Share 38 Tweet 24
  • New Study Indicates Children’s Risk of Long COVID Could Double Following a Second Infection – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

    90 shares
    Share 36 Tweet 23
  • Physicists Develop Visible Time Crystal for the First Time

    75 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19
  • New Insights Suggest ALS May Be an Autoimmune Disease

    70 shares
    Share 28 Tweet 18

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Selective Arylating Uncommon C–F Bonds in Polyfluoroarenes

HIRAID Framework Enhances Nurse and Patient Outcomes

tRF-34-86J8WPMN1E8Y2Q Fuels Gastric Cancer Progression

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 62 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.