Large decline in insects in SW Michigan....

[lrgoodger]

I am concerned.

I live in rural Southwest Michigan and there have always been plenty of insects around here.  That is, until two years or so ago.  In the spring there were always plenty of tiger swallowtails around the lilacs.  Red admirals and mourning cloaks abounded, and later in the summer, black swallowtails and spicebush swallowtails were everywhere, not to mention the ever present cabbage whites and sulphurs.  At night if there was a light on in the house, flying insects would swarm on the screens.  We routinely saw polyphemus and luna moths (and I even got a gorgeous tulip tree moth, for which I had been searching for years) hanging on the walls and screens around the house.  You can see a few of the photos I took at the bottom of my website page here;  sites.google.com/site/ronsbutterflies/.

Now they are gone.  Two years ago I noticed a lack of butterflies in the area and there were very, very few bugs on the screens at night.  It repeated this year.  I didn't see a single swallowtail on my property this year.  I saw only a couple of red admirals and mourning cloaks in the spring, but the cabbage whites and sulphurs that used to be ever present in late summer are gone.  There were still no bugs on the screens at night.  Even the ever present red wasp, with which I continually battled because of all the nests they would build under my porch roofs, is gone.  I stepped outside after dark several times over the summer to be greeted by complete silence until VERY late in the season.  historically there was a cacaphony of night bug sounds.  The dead silence was eerie.  There were not even any frogs croaking down by the creek (they need bugs, don't they?).

I don't know what's going on, but I know something is wrong.  There are large areas of woodlands in this area (including my own 26 acres) that are not subject to fertilizers, and the habitat and climate have not changed.  I'm leaning more toward microwave pollution or increased radiation levels caused by the Fukushima disaster.  The bugs are not the only casualty.  I have dying trees along the creek.  One nuclear expert told me that radiation fallout gets concentrated in the waterways.  Sensitive species will be affected first, and all of the waterside willow trees have died, along with the aspens.  My hickories have become prone to develop fungal infections.  So far the oaks and maples are OK, but I am concerned.  Is it too much of a coincidence that this all started about five years ago?


One thing is for sure. The flying insect population on my property went over a cliff two years ago, and it’s worse than ever this year.

[Paul K]

Yea, I’m pretty sure it is Fukushima and also remain radiation from Chernobyl.

[leptraps]

Not sure what causes population fluctuations. Read many articles and even a book on the topic. I do not believe that global warming has been caused by man. I believe that the earth warms and cools by its own design.

I have read that a single volcano can produce more CO2 in one week than all of mankind will produce in the next ten century's. Of course a little flatulence by a couple of you might prove to be disastrous to the Earth.

[luehdorf]

I strongly doubt that Fukushima has something to do with insect decline. It is well known that insects are extremely robust concerning radiation, in the ground zero areas in nuclear bomb test fields, it’s the insects especially ants that come back first.
Friends of mine PhD med students, that were bored once put beetles into the cancer radiation treatment device and put very strong radiation on them, even with 500x the amount that is deadly for mammals, insects still walk around happily.
Such a fast and strong decline in butterflies must have to do either with pesticides (perhaps there was some farm land a few dozen kilometres away they sprayed pesticides at the wrong time and the wind picked it up) or Micro climate changes locally. Or it is just natural fluctuation in butterflies population cycles.
We should never forget that insect populations can fluctuate extremely. Only if you have a constant decline over 20-30 years across all species, then something is wrong.

[Adam Cotton]

Could someone upstream have been mining gold and discharged mercury into the water source? That or some similar serious pollution event may explain why trees are seriously affected in the vicinity of the waterway. It is also possible that fish and amphibians were poisoned too.

luehdorf made a pertinent comment about pesticide use, some types of which would certainly kill off pretty much all insects downwind of the area sprayed.

Adam.

[leptraps]

I have told this story before.

When I first designed my version of an Inverted Funnel Bait Trap it was uniform in size and configuration. The first major problem was emptying the trap of flies.

My original design had the funnel tethers sewn into the top ring. I replaced the sewn tethers with a tab with a snap ring and a dog collar clip at the end of the tether. Once the tethers were disconnected from the top, the funnel can then be pulled down and out of the cylinder. Then I would spray the trap cylinder with "RAID" insecticide spray and anything in the cylinder would be killed and fall down through the cylinder and out through the funnel.

I had met an Entomologist from the Norfolk area of Virginia who was a Dipterist (Some one who study's Flies). During a visit to my home he saw my Bait Traps and the horde of flies. To say the least, he was impressed.

He returned the following week with six(6) one gallon wide mouth pickle jars. He told me to call him when I filled the jars.

I called him three days later.

I capped the jars and set them in my garage. Several days later Steve picked up the jars. He was impressed once again.

Steve removed the lid from one jar and the stench was unbelievable.

I spoke to Steve several times after he took the jars. He said that 99% of the flies consisted of four species. He referred to them as "Filth Flies". There were also five to ten species of several "Native" flies which were not really common.

Steve also had a bacteria test preformed on the mass and found some dangerous bacteria which grew out of the mass of dead flies.

I never heard from Steve Bullington again. I would learn some years later that he returned to his home state of Washington.

To this day I still remove all Lepidoptera and spray the Bait traps down with Raid. I have often wondered how many millions of flies I have killed in my bait traps over the years.

[lrgoodger]

I should think it would not be radiation because radioactive particles are heavy elements and should sink to the bottom of the ocean. It is unlikely they could travel so far from Japan to Michigan. Pesticides are unlikely as well unless there has been something new come onto the market recently that all of the farmers in the area are using. Windblown pesticides would affect the periphery of forests, but not so much the interiors.

I think microwaves are the more likely culprit. The US is literally bathed in cell phone radiation. There are cell phone towers every few miles. The antennae of insects must be very sensitive to detect pheromones in tiny ppm concentrations in the air. If the microwaves are interfering with insects finding mates, it will be a problem. The huge decline in honey bees since the advent of cell phones is well known. The bee keeper around the corner from me told me that his bees were hard hit.

inhabitat.com/its-official-cell-phones-are-killing-bees/

You know, I think it would be rather easy for silk moth breeders to test this theory. Placing a freshly hatched female outside in a cage with an active cellphone might do it. One could wait for the males to appear in the vicinity, then activate the phone transmitter to see if it confused the males and kept them from finding her. Or you could keep the transmitter on from the beginning (that means using a power supply on the phone instead of a battery) and see if any males show up at all.

[gaspipe]

Oct 20, 2019 18:36:11 GMT -8 leptraps said:

Not sure what causes population fluctuations. Read many articles and even a book on the topic. I do not believe that global warming has been caused by man. I believe that the earth warms and cools by its own design.

I have read that a single volcano can produce more CO2 in one week than all of mankind will produce in the next ten century's. Of course a little flatulence by a couple of you might prove to be disastrous to the Earth.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

[nomad]

There have been huge insect declines in Europe. Germany and Britain are just two examples,and these are the implications for all landscapes dominated by agriculture, the researchers said. Vast continued use of crop Pesticides have built up over time, these are the likely the reasons for declines in insects that a fall out from a volcano and mobile towers, its all man made, just like global warming this time around certainly is. Since insect are an important part of the lower food chain, and other life will struggle to live without them, things are certainly on the turn for the worst. The sad fact is planet earth is over populated and vastly over polluted, these are the real reasons for all animal/habitat decline. Humans being at the top of the food chain, and endeavouring very successfully to trash their own planet.

[Paul K]

Oct 21, 2019 11:29:55 GMT -8 nomad said:

Since insect are an important part of the lower food chain, and other life will struggle to live without them,.

Including us 😢

[exoticimports]

See article "Statewide butterfly monitoring by volunteer recorders in Ohio reveals a persistent decline in abundance, so what can we do?" Tyson Wepprich, News of the Lepidotperists' Society, Volume 61, Number 3 Fall 2019.

The author has the same question, albeit restricted to Ohio, where long-term counts have been implemented. In summary, he blames "habitat loss, climate change, and pesticides".

Of the 81 butterfly species studied, 9 (11%) were increasing, 40 (49%) were steady, and 32 (40%) were decreasing.

Wepprich cites climate change for the increasing species (as well as decreasing) as opposed to habitat loss, since Ohio hasn't changed much.

Of interest, the graph of counts demonstrates a rather steady loss (as opposed to a crash) of about 2% per year from 1995 through today. That there has been no general population crash (though some species have disappeared from Ohio) is indicative of a long-term trend perhaps only recently noticed. Notably, he cites an almost identical long-term 2% loss rate in UK.

Now, on to my observations:

The article extrapolates data from actual data into "predicted" data, due to differences in observation period and frequency, quantity of observers, etc. Fair enough (I suppose) but it isn't then real data, it's manipulated; albeit with the best of intentions, but manipulated data by its very nature is false data.

That said: as I've cited in other posts, I've noticed a decline in many species at my lights in the back yard. Callosamia promethea, in the past common enough to be a nuisance, was unseen in 2019. Polyphemus is way down, as are sphingids. While I could quickly blame climate change, as a problem solver I have to question other factors, such as the forest maturing and the loss of my two most productive UV lights.

Is climate change in my head? Those of my generation scare the younger generation with stories of massive snowstorms with accumulated snow over our head. Of course, we forget that we were 1.2meters tall, and that perhaps those events, spread over a decade of development, stick in our minds as if it were a non-stop occurrence.

That said, P chresphontes in recent (< 10) years has been established in my area. This warmer weather species may or may not (in my mind it certainly does) indicate a general warming.

Of greater concern is the spread of Lyme disease and ticks, virtually unknown until the past decade. As a kid constantly in the field I never saw a tick. Not one. Now, ticks and Lyme disease are so prevalent that I have virtually terminated any local field work.

So, climate change aside, what can cause the decline in Leps in my area of Upstate NY? The big culprit in my mind is agriculture, particularly pesticides. Note (like Ohio) that agriculture has not expanded, thus habitat loss (due to agriculture...now, new housing development may be a different story) is not an issue per se. What has changed is the crop composition: apple and grape farming has exploded. In some regions, these two crops are a multi-million dollar industry- so much so that the Sheriffs of strongly right-leaning counties will not chase down illegal aliens because the apple farms are dependent upon their work.

Whether a result of the change in crop composition or not, the estuaries into which the farming chemicals drain have in recent years exhibited deadly algae blooms. That the algae explosion and agriculture are linked has been well established. But, to my mind, fertilizers are unlikely to damage general insect populations.

That said, hand in hand with fertilizers are pesticides. I must suspect that pesticides, as with other technologies, have become more effective over the past couple decades. I further suspect (and I know I'm going out on this one) that the change to taller plants (apple trees, suspended grape vines) require a different, "higher", application and perhaps the pesticides are now more airborne, more likely to reach outside of the farm?

In any event, I am quite certain that nobody is going to tell me pesticides are less effective than they were twenty years ago, so I think we have our culprit. Not that anything is going to change, not when there is money behind it.

Chuck

[Adam Cotton]

Pesticide and herbicide droplets can easily move one kilometer or more from the original point of spraying in a breeze (never mind strong wind) regardless of the height at which they are sprayed.

[leptraps]

The UFO moth in you SW Michigan post in not a Geometridae, close, but no cigar. It is a Drepanoidae, the family just before Geometridae.

It is Oreta rosea #6255. If you decide to check it out on MPG, click on the species page and you will find a duplicate of the one in your photograph.

I apologize for taking so long. It must be my age, I knew the moth, I just could not remember it's Family or name. Could be my age......

[lrgoodger]

Thanks, Man! I updated my website with that info. If I knew your name, I would have credited you with the ID. I did put your forum name in there.

I perused a few of your old posts to try and get to know you. I am impressed with your dedication to moths. I had often thought in the past that there must be hordes of those little gray moths out there that were unidentified. Looks like that is still the case.

I saw your post about finding Callosamia promethea cocoons. When I was in high school (late 60s) they were easy to find around here. They hung like Christmas ornaments on sassafras saplings along the roads. I should do some driving around and see if I can find any. I'm betting they are gone along with the bulk of butterflies in this area.

[leptraps]

I am a well known character:

Leroy C. Koehn
[e-mail]

I own a little Company: Leptraps LLC
Website: www.leptraps.com
I design, market and manufacturer the equipment that entomologist use to collect insects to a global market.

I have been a Lepidopterist for a couple of years. Give or take 50 or 60 years.

Most people on this site believe I do not play with a full deck.

Needless to say I like both Butterflies and moths and maintain a rather small collection.

Welcome to Insectnet..........