They put a solar powered tracking tag on a butterfly...
Then made an app and gamified it to get people to use their phones to collect, track, and upload the processed monarch migration data. It's like Pokemon Go meets SETI@Home for butterflies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8ZyJn6BENc
https://swmonarchs.org/ProjectMonarch.php
https://celltracktech.com/pages/project-monarch-press-releas...
Motus is a distrbuted network of ground stations for tracking birds and other species (like bats!) for research - they also use CTT tags for tracking (along with tags from another company called Lotek - https://www.lotek.com)
The Amazonian soil is actually extremely poor because of how much water runs through its soil. It's one of the reasons such biodiversity evolved in the first place. Poor soils favor a diversity of strategies while rich soils tend to form monocultures that quickly dominate
(Ofc terra preta, amongst other indigenous technologies, have also radically shaped the soil and its fertility)
I grew up in Texas and definitely remember smaller clusterings – but nothing like my experience at the butterfly exhibit on the top of Chattanooga's Aquarium (tens of thousands in only a few thousand squarefeet).
The definition of mesmerizing, all that flutteringby.
I have also found dying birds in my yard a few days after the neighbor sprayed their house perimeter for ants. No toxicology report but there was no sign of any physical damage.
I work on RNAi-based biopesticides (sprayed dsRNA) - non-GM, doesn't impact beneficial species, doesn't hang around in the environment, etc. Already ubiquitous in nature (and part of our diet). Peptide-based biopesticides are another approach that is going well. Both approaches are now commercialised by smaller players (e.g. for varroa mite control in bee hives by GreenLight), and not by the Bayer, Syngenta types.
Such numbers might be ballpark correct, but I think the "without them" here literally means "if we take current industrial agriculture and simply drop pesticides" i.e. without any other change. Pretty obvious that yes, doing so will easily get you to numbers of that magnitude.
So it's a bit strange not considering the various root causes of what requires those pesticieds in the first place: monocultures on dead soil and nothing which even begins to resemble a normal ecosystem in sight. Those causes happen to be exactly among the causes of the massive insect/more general biodiversity decline we're witnessing. Along with pesticides, sure, but habitat loss is likely an even bigger factor.
So while those biopesticides are probably a net win over what is used now, it's rather unclear if they'll have a meaningful impact on that decline. Which is why reports on solutions for the decline also always include adressing at least part of the root causes, like partial shifts back to landscapes which are a mix of nature and agriculture. Where there's at least a bush/tree line between fields, for instance. Which also helps keeping certain pests in control.
We send rockets to the moon and every person is getting phones. We would survive without pesticides.
If these substances slowly cause cancer (making it harder to trace) or other health problems, like birth defects or fertility problems, it can take a generation to figure out. The money has long been took and the getaway car long gone. Just lots of damaged and sick people wondering what happened, who will likely not even get a "sorry".
maybe they don't make great decorations, but the spiders generally stay in their webs and don't bother me. i once watched one defeat a wasp twice its size. i might feel differently if we had any dangerous spiders around here (just black widows, and they stay in dark hidey holes), but i'm happy to trade a little space for their services.
Some of ours are decorative enough, eg this orb weaver I exchange greetings with most mornings: https://www.pasteboard.co/07o5TWpFLUY8.png
Or rather, that maybe we're learning the wrong lesson each time. Maybe instead of "asbestos is bad" or "DDT is bad", the real lesson should have been "biological and ecological systems are incredibly fragile outside of the exact combination of environmental conditions and chemical inputs they've specifically evolved to handle".
Too much complexity, too many delicate mechanisms and feedback loops. Can't afford to keep playing whack-a-mole, every generation we replace the old poisons and add some new ones. If we keep introducing new molecules and quantities of substances that evolution hasn't had a chance to adapt to, then we shouldn't be surprised that we keep breaking things.
But let's not pretend we don't use pesticides for a reason. People gotta eat, and pyrethrins are already an improvement AFAIU, less toxic to mammals, similar to molecules that exist in nature. But still, a cudgel. Maybe we need to take ecological engineering seriously, control pest species by simultaneously cultivating stable ecosystems of insectivores/predators and hyperparasites, poison spray not required...
An hour later, monarch having a seizure on our porch. Oops. Never again.
That's not to say something can't work better on one particular type of biotic, but its still harmful to the others as well.
We’re using scented lures which have the right salt + lipid combo to attract mosquitoes. It helps but I still wish Nathan Myrvold had seriously developed that “photonic fence” product.
There have been some anecdotal reports of people having to clean their car windscreens a bit more often. That's a good thing. It means more bugs are flying around. Insect counts go up, counts of anything that eats those goes up as well.
Reducing the use of pesticides is a good idea as well. If only because modern farming still depends on pesticides and pollinator populations collapsing seems to be correlated with the use of pesticides. No pollinators, no fruit/vegetables. It's in their own interest to do something about populations collapsing. Allocating some of their land for pollinator friendly vegetation would also be smart.
A lot of over the counter toxins should be banned and in EU the use and sale of those is already restricted. Even rat poison is banned in some places now. Unfortunately, farmers seem to have successfully lobbied for being able to continue to use some pesticides. But it seems that awareness of the issue is growing; including of the health effects of living close to a farm that uses pesticides. It's likely that more restrictions will come eventually.
homeowners have nothing on farms, acres and acres of pesticides and monocultures
Hard to do that when the very thing you're fighting against drastically lowers the cost of the product.
No, this is what regulation and laws are for. Too bad science and the like seem to be on the way out currently. :/
Already, I'm beginning to worry about this year's hummingbird migration (my feeders, typically guarded by now, have been rotting for weeks). Even from a decade ago, local firefly populations seem diminished #Appalachia
But $tock$ are up. Rejoice.
They're maxed out, and there's a limit to how many causes they can 1) be convinced to care about and 2) how many causes they actually have the impulse control to keep strict about.
https://www.audubon.org/plantsforbirds
TIP: the zip code entry box also has a space for your email. You can just ignore that box and only enter the zip code. Here's an example page:
https://www.audubon.org/native-plants/best-results?zipcode=9...
I've long thought we need to be more aggressive at bringing in biological controls of these invasives. There's a tendency to be conservative about this, to not make mistakes, to study not act, but I think increasing risks have to be taken there because the existing situation is also a huge risk.
At the same time, I enjoy planting native plants in my garden. One of my favorite discoveries there was Pearly Everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea), a low plant with pale blue-green leaves. When I first planted it, it was absolutely covered with caterpillars of the American (Painted) Lady butterfly. They ate down to bare stalks that then died. I thought it was done but it came back strongly and seeded enough to spread the next year. I think it's evolved to survive this sort of brutal spring pruning. I've since seen it in the wild, which was a treat.
I'm looking into native sedges right now since they provide a lot of ecological benefit and are better-suited to growing in the soil conditions of my yard.
My idea is that there are two types of lawns. There are the lawn you use, and it is fine to be grass. But there is a lot of lawn that is landscaping and that can be native plants.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Dutch+white+clover+seed+for+...
It’s not too hard to find in the US. You could buy five pounds of seed [0] right now if you wanted to.
0: https://www.johnnyseeds.com/farm-seed/legumes/clovers/new-ze...
The other nice thing is they don't need cutting nearly as often. I only had to cut the lawn because the stray random grasses and weeds that grew among the clovers.
A small way to help is to replace some or all of your lawn with native species. A lawn should be a throw rug, not wall to wall carpet that is functionally a desert. If you won't get fined for doing so.
[1] https://www.worldwildlife.org/news/press-releases/catastroph...
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00063...
This is the survey of experts but is probably behind a paywall. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/2/157/5715071
The names of these plants ought to be changed.
But we fought the milkweeds cause nobody wanted them in their yard cause before long it's all you had.
We won the war but we don't have as many monarch butterflies anymore.
Here it had nothing to do with pesticides, we just destroyed their lifecycle.
I get the sentiment but tend to I disagree. Maybe some very specific species might benefit somewhat, but in general the principle makes little sense. Whatever native fauna there is in your area spent thousands of years in relationships with other native flora and fauna. So not just plants, also the soil life, the combination of plants, the terrain variation and so on. Hence replicating that as close as possible should be what works best. Which a far as nectar/pollen goes means not a single species but a combination providing it throughout the seasons. Whereas 'long blooming and nectar rich' completely ignores specialist insects which only get nectar and pollen from one particular species or group of species, insects laying eggs on specific species only, and so on. Butterfly bush is considered a McDonalds for insects, and that's actually a pretty good metaphor. Red valerian is in the same ballpark.
Milkweed is the only one that can feed the Monarch at all stages of its life, from larva to caterpillar to butterfly. When people plant butterfly bushes, it “tricks” the butterfly (or at least crowds out better options) into laying eggs where the larvae will ultimately die of starvation.
Startup opportunity, anyone?
