(ORDO NEWS) — Ecologists have tracked changes in the size of the populations of two hundred species of insects in Europe over the past 40 years and found that about 30% of them have increased due to climate change. This was announced on Friday by the press service of the Technical University of Munich (TUM).
Observations show that the number of domestic and wild bees, butterflies, and other insects is falling. For example, over the past six years, the population of wild bees has decreased by a third, and the number of domestic bees in North America alone has halved.
The researchers decided to study the data collected by entomologists in Bavaria since the early 1980s, and find out how climate change affects the number and habitat of insects in Europe.
In total, biologists analyzed 200 species of insects. Most of them belonged to three orders of invertebrates – Lepidoptera (butterflies), Orthoptera (grasshoppers) and dragonflies.
Due to climate change, the number and habitat of 30% of insects have increased, 37% have decreased their population size, and the remaining 33% have not yet responded to temperature changes or have already adapted to it.
The number of butterflies and grasshoppers decreased the most – 41%, the largest losses were among those species that are adapted to a cold climate.
At the same time, the habitats and the number of dragonflies increased by 52%, scientists attribute this to the thermophilicity of insects.
“Populations of many heat-loving insects, including dragonflies, crickets and bluebirds, have risen markedly as a result of global warming.
Saffron dragonflies have been affected the most – they used to be found only in warm regions of the Mediterranean, and now they can be seen in Bavaria where they penetrated in the early 1990s,” said TUM researcher Christian Hof, quoted by the university’s press service.
Researchers associated the reduction in the number of other insects not with climate, but with changes in human nature management.
According to experts, this should be taken into account when analyzing the impact of climate change on different ecosystems of the Earth.
—
Online:
Contact us: [email protected]
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Standard Terms And Conditions.