California's butterflies and all its insects for that matter are exterminated by neonics | Bird decline, insect decline and neonicotinoids

The link has been established before. When we reduce pests with most insecticides, they discriminate too little between friend and foe. We cant always see butterflies as friends because of the function of their caterpillars. However, as birds, reptiles and mammals rely on these insects and their relatives for food, what happens is simply Silent Spring, all over again.
Prof. Matthew L. Forister of the University of Nevada and many colleagues from British Columbia and Toronto in Canada and several more southwestern US universities researched the data in "Increasing neonicotinoid use and the declining butterfly fauna of lowland California". This paper is published by the Royal Society in its Biology Letters today. The rich butterfly populations of Northern California made it a biodiversity hot-spot. Low altitude populations have been in decline since the late 1990s, with no correlation with either recent temperature changes or the alteration in the use of land. Neonicotinoid use however, began in 1995.

Butterfly species with a negative association with the pesticide experienced the most severe declines, but were also smaller bodied and had fewer generations each year. If this were extended to other insects, the whole production of (natural) biomass for a year could be very much lowered by neonicotinoids. The European situation mirrored this in a previous paper, while moth species that are agricultural pests have also been recorded having such negative responses.

The biggest worry is bats and birds, that feed extensively on these insects, but we must also consider where that run-off is going. Every fish in the water, every marine species liable to be affected, they all must be considered before we have yet another great pollution scandal- or we lose our fruit orchard crop - or butterflies simply disappear. So much for that biodiversity hot-spot!