Entomology

• Every summer for almost the last 20 years, volunteers from the Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife, both in the UK, have been tracking car number plates.
• Their inspections aim to register the numbers of flying insects hit by vehicles.
• The results of the 2022 campaign showed a reduction, over fewer than 20 years, of 64% in the number of insects hit by cars.

The sixth mass extinction

• In order to gain realistic measurements, the most rigorous research uses historical studies that track insect populations over decades.
• In Germany, a 27 year-long study was published in 2017 showing that 76% of flying insect biomass has been lost within a wide network of natural spaces.
• This study also showed a parallel decline in animals that eat insects, such as lizards, frogs and birds.

Why are there fewer insects?

• They need the ground that we cover with cement, the increasingly scarce water that we pollute or divert, and the plants that we treat with pesticides.
• Among other things, the number of airborne microscopic particles, which block their sensory organs and ways of communicating, are on the rise.
• This weakens the vital biological relationships between all living things, and in turn threatens our very existence as a species.

Why are they so important?

• It is therefore clear that they play many essential roles in sustaining life on Earth, most importantly that of pollinating plants.
• 35% of the world’s food supply comes from plants that are pollinated by insects.
• The UN Food and Agriculture Organsiation warns that if they were to disappear, food security would be at risk.

What can we do to protect them?

Large scale environmental problems cannot be solved by the actions of individuals. However, experience shows us that lots of small gestures can add up to achieve big results. Some of the things we can do are:
Support or work with projects that aim to raise awareness and protections for insects both in rural and urban areas. The aforementioned Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife are good examples in the UK. In Spain we have the SPIPOLL project, the uBMS Citizens’ Butterfly Observatory and the Spanish Network of Biosphere Reserves’ Phenological Monitoring Programme.
Ensure that urban green spaces – as well as verges, roundabouts and other undeveloped areas – contain animal habitats and native flora which can provide breeding sites and refuge for insect species.
Refrain from using pesticides in private gardens or vegetable patches, and where possible in public green spaces. Limit the removal of “weeds” growing around ornamental plants, especially during flowering periods.
Consume food products made following good agricultural practices that value and promote organic farming and biological or integrated pest control.
Replace livestock pest control treatments with products that are not harmful to insects that help in the decomposition process.
Avoid introducing invasive plant or animal species, both in agriculture and gardening.
All of us, in particular educators, have an important responsibility to show both children and adults that insects are noble, vital and beautiful. Their declining numbers are an unprecedented problem, and our very survival as a species is at stake if we cannot reverse this trend.

• Saioa Legarrea Imizcoz carries out her research at the University of La Rioja thanks to the European Union's Next Generation funding, articulated in the María Zambrano Call (Royal Decree 289/2021 of 20 April).
• María Ángeles Marcos García receives funding to carry out Scientific Projects from the Spanish Government, Autonomous Communities and Europe in which insects are studied from different conservationist themes (pollination, pest control, decomposers...).