By Morgan Erickson-Davis 27 October 2017 (Mongabay) – A new study in PLOS ONE reveals a 76 percent reduction in Germany’s flying insect biomass over the past 27 years while another reports the country’s bird abundance has declined 15 percent in just over a decade. While the causes behind the insect decline haven’t yet been […]
18 October 2017 (IWWR) – Since 1989, in 63 nature reserves in Germany the total biomass of flying insects has decreased by more than 75 percent. This decrease has long been suspected but has turned out to be more severe than previously thought. Ecologists from Radboud University together with German and English colleagues published these […]
By Laurel Hamers 5 October 2017(Science News) – Neonicotinoid pesticides are turning up in honey on every continent with honeybees.The first global honey survey testing for these controversial nicotine-derived pesticides shows just how widely honeybees are exposed to the chemicals, which have been shown to affect the health of bees and other insects. Three out […]
By Sharon Bernstein; editing by Ben Klayman and Richard Chang 6 August 2017 WEAVERVILLE, California (Reuters) – Pollution from illegal marijuana farms deep in California’s national forests is far worse than previously thought, and has turned thousands of acres into waste dumps so toxic that simply touching plants has landed law enforcement officers in the […]
By Clive Cookson 25 July 2017 (Financial Times) – The sperm count of men in the western world has fallen by more than half over a period of 40 years, according to an international study described by its authors as “an urgent wake-up call” about declining male health. “Decreasing sperm count has been of great […]
By Brady Dennis 15 June 2017 (The Washington Post) – President Trump once vowed to get rid of the Environmental Protection Agency “in almost every form,” leaving behind only “tidbits.” On Thursday, the man he appointed to lead the EPA went to Capitol Hill to defend a budget proposal that would begin that promised dismantling.“I […]
By Gretchen Vogel10 May 2017 (Science) – Entomologists call it the windshield phenomenon. “If you talk to people, they have a gut feeling. They remember how insects used to smash on your windscreen,” says Wolfgang Wägele, director of the Leibniz Institute for Animal Biodiversity in Bonn, Germany. Today, drivers spend less time scraping and scrubbing. […]
By Steve Gorman; Editing by Sandra Maler10 January 2017 (Reuters) – The rusty patched bumble bee, a prized but vanishing pollinator once familiar to much of North America, was listed on Tuesday as an endangered species, becoming the first wild bee in the continental United States to gain such federal protection. One of several species […]
ABSTRACT: Debate about how sustainable intensification and multifunctionality might be implemented continues, but there remains little understanding as to what extent they are achievable in arable landscapes. Policies that influence agronomic decisions are rarely made with an appreciation of the trade-offs that exist between food production, biodiversity conservation, and ecosystem service provision. We present an […]
By Dr. Barnaby Smith14 September 2016 (CEH) – The State of Nature 2016 UK report is launched by Sir David Attenborough and UK conservation and research organisations at the Royal Society in London this morning (Wednesday, September 14). Following on from the first State of Nature report published in 2013 the report reveals that over […]