Insects are dying out, writes Robert Hunziker, and nobody knows precisely why (a list of suspects: monoculture, pesticides, diseases, parasites, climate change):
Beyond doubt, it is not normal for 50%-to-90% of a species to drop dead, but that is happening right now from Germany to Australia to Puerto Rico’s tropical rainforest.
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Too bad, but why should anyone care?
So important are insects and other land-dwelling arthropods that if all were to disappear, humanity probably could not last more than a few months. Most of the amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals would crash to extinction about the same time. Next would go the bulk of the flowering plants and with them the physical structure of most forests and other terrestrial habitats of the world. The land surface would literally rot. As dead vegetation piled up and dried out, closing the channels of the nutrient cycles, other complex forms of vegetation would die off, and with them all but a few remnants of the land vertebrates.(The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson. Google Books preview)
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But never fear, the Invisible Hand of the Market is here:
Fighting Colony Collapse Disorder: How Beekeepers Make More Bees
Tim Taylor, Saturday, August 5, 2017.
A Bee Industry Update: Colony Collapse Disorder and Almond Pollination
Tim Taylor. Thursday, August 23, 2018
The solution in a nutshell: bee-hive starter kits selling for US$90.
Reassuring to see the planning department of the whole human race is already on top of things. They clearly understand the potential magnitude of the problem.
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