General

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

It's summer wildflower season in the Rocky Mountains, a time when high-peaks meadows are dotted with riotous color. But for how long? Once, wildflower season in montane meadow ecosystems extended throughout the summer months. But now scientists have found a fall-off in wildflowers at mid-season. They published their results, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), in the current issue of the Journal of Ecology."Shifts in flowering in mountain meadows could in turn affect the resources available to pollinators like bees," says David Inouye of the University of Maryland, currently on leave in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology.

Decline in Some Bumble Bee Species Spells Doom For Red Clover

Sweden is witnessing a steep fall in red clover Trifolium pratense yield in the wake of an alarming decline in the population of such bumble bee species as Bombus hortorum and Bombus pascuorum. Scientists from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the University of Lund have discovered that the community composition of bumble bee species and their relative abundances have changed drastically over the last 70 years in Sweden. Over the same period, the average seed yield of red clover has declined and variation in yield has doubled, suggesting that the current dependence on few species for pollination of red clover has been detrimental especially to stability in seed yield.

Brand Kalmthoutse Heide grootste ecologische ramp ooit in Vlaanderen

De brand op de Kalmthoutse Heide is de grootste ecologische ramp ooit in Vlaanderen. Dat meldt het Agentschap voor Natuur en Bos. Het vuur heeft een recordaantal hectare uniek Europees natuurgebied verwoest. Ongeveer 600 hectare heide ging in de vlammen op. Het is de eerste keer dat zo'n oppervlakte verloren gaat. Het vuur hield vooral huis in de droge en natte heide, die allebei Europees beschermde habitattypes zijn. Het zal jaren duren eer het natuurgebied hersteld is, maar de kans dat bepaalde zeldzame plant- en diersoorten die typisch zijn voor de unieke heidevegetatie zullen weerkeren, is klein.

Intensive farming threatens wildflowers

A guide to more than 100 of Britain’s arable plants says flowers that were once common are now rare sights because of increasingly intensive farming methods. Those species most at risk in Scotland include shepherd’s needle Scandix pecten-veneris, which is fast disappearing in East Lothian, pink dianthus, geranium and yellow globe flower Trollius europaeus. Other species, such as corncockle Agrostemma githago, are already considered to be extinct in Britain. Also threatened are common poppies, corn marigold and cornflower. Wildflower experts said farmers were using increasing amounts of pesticides and other chemicals, cutting back hedges and filling in boggy areas where plants thrived. This has also had a knock-on effect on bees, butterflies and birds further up the food chain.

Eco-Farming can double food production in 10 years, says new UN report

Small-scale farmers can double food production within 10 years in critical regions by using ecological methods, a new UN report shows. Based on an extensive review of the recent scientific literature, the study calls for a fundamental shift towards agroecology as a way to boost food production and improve the situation of the poorest.

UNEP report - Loss of plant pollinators could undermine efforts to feed the world’s growing population

A mixture of chemicals found in modern pesticides may be killing bee colonies around the world, according to a United Nations report. The report says that the highly toxic chemicals in the insecticides, collectively known as neonicotinoids, can cause loss of the sense of direction and memory on which bees rely to find food. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report says that when neonicotinoids are combined with certain fungicides, the toxicity becomes a thousand times stronger. It says that the loss of nature’s most important plant pollinators could undermine efforts to feed the world’s growing population. The report finds that tens of thousands of plant species could be lost in coming years unless conservation efforts are stepped up.

Parallel Declines in Pollinators and Insect-Pollinated Plants in Britain and the Netherlands

Despite widespread concern about declines in pollination services, little is known about the patterns of change in most pollinator assemblages. By studying bee and hoverfly assemblages in Britain and the Netherlands, we found evidence of declines (pre-versus post-1980) in local bee diversity in both countries; however, divergent trends were observed in hoverflies. Depending on the assemblage and location, pollinator declines were most frequent in habitat and flower specialists, in univoltine species, and/or in nonmigrants. In conjunction with this evidence, outcrossing plant species that are reliant on the declining pollinators have themselves declined relative to other plant species. Taken together, these findings strongly suggest a causal connection between local extinctions of functionally linked plant and pollinator species.

The use of imidacloprid as a systemic insecticide to trees is associated with adverse effects on non-target insects and earthworms

Imidacloprid can be applied as a systemic insecticide to trees by direct stem injections or by soil injections and drenches, and be indirectly introduced to aquatic systems via leaf fall or leaching, which may pose a risk to natural decomposer organisms. When applied directly to aquatic microcosms to simulate leaching from soils, imidacloprid was shown to be highly toxic to aquatic insects. Imidacloprid at realistic field concentrations in maple leaves had adverse effects on aquatic insects and earthworms. Imidacloprid at realistic concentrations in leaves can inhibit leaf litter breakdown through adverse effects on decomposer invertebrates. When imidacloprid is applied as a systemic insecticide to the soil around trees it may cause adverse effects on earthworms.

The Plight of Farmland Birds

Britain's farmland birds have suffered alarming declines over the last twenty-five years. It would appear that their decrease in numbers coincides with a period of rapid intensification in farming in the mid-1970s, and they have continued to steadily drop in numbers ever since.

There is thought to be six main reasons for the decline in farmland bird numbers:

1) Loss of wild food-plants as a result of herbicide use
2) Change from spring-sown to autumn-sown cereals and the subsequent loss of winter stubble.
3) Insecticide use reducing invertebrate populations.
4) Conversion of pasture to arable land and the resultant decline in soil invertebrate numbers.
5) Land drainage making soil dwelling invertebrates less accessible.
6) Availability of nest sites due to removal of hedgerows

All of these factors are a result of agricultural intensification, and they have affected different species to varying degrees.

Comparative Losses of British Butterflies, Birds, and Plants and the Global Extinction Crisis

There is growing concern about increased population, regional, and global extinctions of species. A key question is whether extinction rates for one group of organisms are representative of other taxa. We present a comparison at the national scale of population and regional extinctions of birds, butterflies, and vascular plants from Britain in recent decades. Butterflies experienced the greatest net losses, disappearing on average from 13% of their previously occupied 10-kilometer squares. If insects elsewhere in the world are similarly sensitive, the known global extinction rates of vertebrate and plant species have an unrecorded parallel among the invertebrates, strengthening the hypothesis that the natural world is experiencing the sixth major extinction event in its history.