Discussion 1 – Background

What is being said about insect Armageddon? What is the public reading, and are these fair characterizations of the phenomenon? We will read stories from news sites that appear to be driving public interest in insects declines.

• Plummeting insect numbers (The Guardian)
• The insect apocalypse is coming (CNN)
• The insect apocalypse is here (NY Times)
• The insect apocalypse in not here (The Economist)

Discussion 2 – Historical perspective

Is this a new phenomenon?

• Patch (1938) and Carson (1962, Ch. 8 or articles 1, 2, 3 from New Yorker)

Discussions 3–4 – The scope, scale, and timing of insect declines

How robust is the evidence that insects are declining?

• Hallmann et al (2017) – declines in Germany, started a big discussion
• MacGregor et al. (2019) – moth decline in Britain; see also news article
• van Strien et al. (2019) – butterflies in Netherlands
• Wepprich et al. (2019) – butterfly decline in Ohio
• Thomas (2016) – butterfly loss, perspective piece in Science
• Zattara and Aizen (2019) – global bee decline; preprint
• Harris et al. (2019) – beetle decline linked to global warming
• Loboda et al. (2018) – loss of flies in Arctic
• Harmon et al. (2006) – Invasive species causing decline of Coccinellidae
• Stepanian et al. (2020) – Mayfly decline in North America
• Hao et al. (2015) – grazing and grasshoppers in Mongolia
• Trisos et al. (2020) – global warming threat

Discussions 5–7 – Factors contributing to decline

What are the possible causes for declines in insect diversity ?

• Owens et al. (2020) – light pollution
• Soroye et al. (2020) – climate change and bumble bees in Science
• Sánchez-Bayo and Wyckhuys (2019) – review of multiple drivers; high profile
  • Thomas et al. (2019) – criticism of Sánchez-Bayo and Wyckhuys
• Hedges et al. (2018) – habitat loss in Haiti
• Goulet and Masner (2017) – herbicides in Canada
• Janzen and Hallwachs (2019) – global warming in tropics; perspective piece, light on data
• Seibold et al. (2019) – landscape-level drivers of insect decline
• França et al. (2020) – doesn’t focus on insects but does look at a variety of stressors
• Redondo-Hasselerharm et al. (2020) – Microplastics and freshwater inverts
• Oliveira et al. (2019) – microplastics and terrestrial insects
• Lewis et al. (2020)– fireflies threatened globally

Discussions 8–10 – Impacts of insect decline

What are the possible impacts of insect declines on ecosystem services, food webs, agriculture, disease, and other organisms?

• Lever et al. (2014) – collapse of pollinator communities
• Grab et al. (2019) – intensive ag and loss of pollinator services
• Lister and Garcia (2018) – restructured food webs in Puerto Rico
  • response (Links to an external site.)
  • response to response (Links to an external site.)
• Chaplin-Kramer et al. (2019) – nature’s ecosystem services modeled
• Isbell et al. (2019) – slow recovery of ag land without active restoration
• Yamamuro et al. (2019) – neonics disrupt aquatic foodweb in Japan
• Salcido et al. (2020) – impacts of loss of caterpillars in tropics
• Marquis et al. (2019) – loss of leaf chewing insects in Ozarks
• Winfree et al. (2015) – a few abundant species drive ecosystem services

Discussions 11–14 – Future research and action

What should entomologists be doing to further understand this phenomenon? What simple or society-wide changes must we make? What can we do locally and at Penn State?

• Montgomery et al. (2019) – how to find out if the apocalypse is here
• Saunders et al. (2019) – moving on from apocalypse narrative
• Pringle (2017) – upgrading nature preserves; read with Carroll (2016)?
• Jacobson et al. (2019) – global areas of low human impact; habitat loss is driver
• Forister et al. (2019) – we know enough to act now; here’s how
• Prathapan et al. (2018) – regulation hurts biodiversity research; has the time come to remove obstacles to research?
• Thomas et al (2019) – invited letter to editor, calls for more research
• Wilson et al. (2017) – public interest in conservation vs. their understanding
• Harvey et al. (2020) – measures we need to take
• Didham et al. (2020) – Insect losses and moving forward
• Baldock et al. (2019) – urban hotspots, opportunities for conservation
• Penn et al. (2018) – Public knowledge of monarchs and support for butterfly conservation
• CBD (2020) – Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, published by the Convention on Biological Diversity
• Cardoso et al. (2011) – impediments to invertebrate conservation
• Basset and Lamarre (2019) – perspective in Science: Toward a world that values insects
• Washington Post article (2020) – hunting is dying
• Theodorou et al. (2020) – urban conservation for bees

Discussion 15 – Synthesis and moving forward