<
https://theconversation.com/how-air-pollution-is-making-life-tougher-for-bugs-213122>
"Whether you love them or loathe them, we all depend on bugs. Insects help to
pollinate three-quarters of the world’s crop varieties, making them a treasured
resource.
But we’re making the lives of insects tough – and not just by swatting them
away with a newspaper. Insect populations worldwide are in sharp decline as
they battle against climate change, habitat loss and pesticides.
Now, we can add air pollution to the list of threats. Our research from 2022
revealed that when exposed to two common air pollutants at concentrations
within EU air quality limits, the visits of pollinating insects to flowers
plummeted by as much as 90%.
Over a span of two years, we artificially elevated the levels of either ozone
or diesel exhaust fumes around plots of flowering black mustard plants, all
within fields of non-flowering wheat. We carefully monitored and controlled the
release of pollutants using rings constructed around each plot.
This method allowed us to monitor the number of pollinating insects visiting
the flowers in polluted plots and draw comparisons with plots devoid of
pollutants.
We were surprised by what we found. In the rings where we released ozone or
diesel exhaust fumes, the number of pollinating insects decreased by 70% and
overall pollination success rates decreased by up to 31%.
It wasn’t just bees and butterflies that were affected. Ground-dwelling insects
suffered too, with exposure to these pollutants causing their numbers to
decrease by as much as 36%."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
