每周阅读2

佳琪

Have you noticed that fewer bugs are hitting your windshield nowadays? Or perhaps that the fireflies of your childhood are disappearing? A new study published in the journal Biological Conservation reports that 40 percent of insect species are in decline and may die out within the next century. The current rate of extinction for insects is an alarming eight times higher than that of mammals, birds, and reptiles. This adds to the body of research that shows that Earth is now experiencing the sixth mass extinction in its history. Losses of larger animals that are easier to study have already been reported and are being studied, but there is not as much data about insects and smaller creatures. However a growing number of studies have begun to piece together the breadth and scope of insect losses.

In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that invertebrate abundance had fallen by 45 percent worldwide. In an unsettling report from 201 7, European researchers found that the insect abundance had dropped more than 75 percent in certain nature preserves in Germany in the previous few decades. Last year, researchers from the U.S. and Mexico published their findings that the biomass of insects and other arthropods (spiders, centipedes, etc.) in a rainforest in Puerto Rico had decreased by 10 to 60-fold since the 1970s. They additionally found that populations of animals that eat insects such as lizards, birds, and frogs showed a similar decline; the number of birds collected for the study in the area fell by 50 percent between 1990 and 2005.
The causes of these losses are many, and vary from region to region. In areas with industrialized agriculture, intensive use of herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides is harming insect populations. Neonicotinoids, a new type of pesticide in use for the past 20 years, have been found to be particularly harmful. In the tropics, where intensive agriculture is not prevalent, one main factor is climate change. In the area of Puerto Rico where the 2018 study was done, the average high temperature had increased by four degrees Fahrenheit over the 40-year period of the study. Other factors include habitat loss and habitat degradation due to deforestation, large-scale agriculture ,urbanization, and air, water, and light pollution. Globalization also plays a role, by spreading invasive species, parasites, and pathogens that are harmful to insects to the most remote regions of the planet in record time.
Of all insects, some of the most threatened species are butterflies and moths, pollinators such as bees, and dung beetles. Although many people find insects to be pesky creatures with their bites and stings, their damage to crops ,and the diseases they sometimes carry, the loss of these and other insects would be detrimental to the earth and to humankind, as insect populations dying out can lead to ecosystem collapse. Insects are ecosystem linchpins; as the base of the food web they are sustenance for birds, small mammals, and fish, and their loss can have a domino effect on the animals in an ecosystem, causing subsequent groups of animal species to starve to death. In addition, around three- fourths of all flowering plants on the planet rely on insects for pollination, as do 35percent of cultivated crops. As for dung beetles, they may not be as cute as bees and butterflies, but they provide an essential function in helping the decomposition of feces and detritus (breaking down and removing plant and animal waste), and the effects of their loss would be extremely unpleasant, to say the least. Needless to say, a change in mentality about insects is vital, and further studies in other areas of the world must be done in order to  begin to tackle this problem.

每周阅读week2
一项新的研究表明，昆虫的数量出现了惊人的下降
发表在《生物保护报告》上的一项新研究表明，40%的昆虫物种正在减少，并可能在下个世纪灭绝，昆虫的灭绝速度是其他物种的八倍左右。地球正在经历其历史上的第六次物种大灭绝。现在越来越多的研究开始拼凑出昆虫消失的范围和广度。来自世界各地的生物研究人员发现除了昆虫以外，一些以昆虫为食的动物也出现了一定程度上的减少。
造成如今这种局面的原因有很多，包括密集使用除草剂、杀虫剂、杀菌剂等化学药品、气候变化、还有森林砍伐、大规模农业、城市化、空气、水和光污染等等，都对昆虫种群造成了很大的危害。
昆虫的消失对于人类和地球都不是一件好事，昆虫数量的减少会导致生态系统的崩溃。不必说，改变人们对于昆虫的观念是至关重要的，为了开始解决这个问题，还必须在世界其他地区进行进一步的研究。