Agricultural Reviews

  • Chief EditorPradeep K. Sharma

  • Print ISSN 0253-1496

  • Online ISSN 0976-0741

  • NAAS Rating 4.63

Frequency :
Quarterly (March, June, September & December)
Indexing Services :
AGRICOLA, Google Scholar, CrossRef, CAB Abstracting Journals, Chemical Abstracts, Indian Science Abstracts, EBSCO Indexing Services, Index Copernicus
Submit

Review Article

Global Decline of Insects: A Review from Agricultural Perspective

M.K. Mazed, M. Afroz, M.M. Rahman
  • Email
1Department of Entomology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, Gazipur, Bangladesh.
Cite article:- Mazed M.K., Afroz M., Rahman M.M. (2022). Global Decline of Insects: A Review from Agricultural Perspective. Agricultural Reviews. 43(3): 334-340. doi: 10.18805/ag.RF-223.

ABSTRACT

The diversity and abundance of insect is facing serious challenges globally in the current era. Although the loss of biodiversity other than invertebrates has been a burning issue from a long ago, some recent reports on insect decline and its impact on agriculture have given it a crucial dimension. Studies related to insect decline revealed that 40% of insect taxa are going through the risk of decline. The current situation is the resultant of several human-influenced factors, most prominently the intensification of agriculture. Insect is one of the most diverse groups having immense effects on ecosystem as an integral part of food web which ultimately has direct effect on other organisms of environment. The most conspicuous contribution of insect is its pollination services to 80% of the flowering plants worldwide which have direct effect on human food security. Decline of pollinator insects and natural enemies of insect pests can impair the crop production due to insufficient pollination and underutilization of the insect control potential of predator insects. To resist the vulnerability of nature and to ensure food security, insect decline should be cut down by controlling anthropogenic stressors through the conservation of natural habitats, eliminating deleterious agricultural practices, implementing insect friendly policies, etc. Immediate action is necessary to alter the nature exploiting agricultural practices causing insect decline to ensure the normal functioning and integrity of entire ecosystem and for human welfare.

REFERENCES


  1. Aich, U., Chowdhury, S., Akand, S., Rahman, S., Chowdhury, K., Sultan, Z. and Bashar, M. (2016). Synchronization of coincidences between the life stages of Pachliopta aristolochiae and the phenological stages of its host plant Aristolochia indica. Journal of Biodiversity Conservation and Bioresource Management. 2: 65-72.

  2. Attwood, S.J., Maron, M., House, A.P.N. and Zammit, C. (2008). Do arthropod assemblages display globally consistent responses to intensified agricultural land use and management? Global Ecology and Biogeography. 17: 585-99.

  3. Brooks, D.R., Bater, J.E., Clark, S.J., Monteith, D.T. andrews, C., et al. (2012). Large carabid beetle declines in a United Kingdom monitoring network increases evidence for a widespread loss in insect biodiversity. Journal of Applied Biology. 49: 1009-19.

  4. Cardoso, P., Barton, P.S., Birkhofer, K., Chichorro, F., Deacon, C., Fartmann, T., Fukushima, C.S., et al. (2020). Scientists’ warning to humanity on insect extinctions. Biological Conservation. 242: 108426. 

  5. Chen, I.C., Hill, J.K., Shiu, H.J., Holloway, J.D., Benedick, S., Chey, V.K. and Thomas, C.D. (2011). Asymmetric boundary shifts of tropical montane Lepidoptera over four decades of climate warming. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 20(1): 34-45.

  6. Chowdhury, S., Hesselberg, T., Böhm, M., Islam, M.R. and Aich, U. (2017). Butterfly diversity in a tropical urban habitat (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea). Oriental Insects. 51(4): 417-430.

  7. Cole, L.J., Brocklehurst, S., Robertson, D., Harrison, W. and McCracken, D.I. (2017). Exploring the interactions between resource availability and the utilization of semi-natural habitats by insect pollinators in an intensive agricultural landscape. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. 246: 157-67.

  8. Desneux, N., Decourtye, A. and Delpuech, J.M. (2007). The sublethal effects of pesticides on beneficial arthropods. Annual Review of Entomology. 52: 81-106. 

  9. Dirzo, R., Young, H.S. and Galett, M. (2014). Defaunation in the anthropocene. Science. 345: 401-406.

  10. Ellis, J. (2012). The honey bee crisis. Outlooks on Pest Management. 23(1): 35-40.

  11. Forister, M.L., Pelton, E.M. and Black, S.H. (2019). Declines in insect abundance and diversity: we know enough to act now. Conservation Science and Practice. 1(8): e80.

  12. Fox, R. (2013). The decline of moths in Great Britain: A review of possible causes. Insect Conservation and Diversity. 6: 5-19.

  13. Fox, R., Brereton, T.M., Asher, J., August, T.A. and Botham, M.S. (2015). The state of the UK’s butterflies 2015. Wareham, Dorset, Butterfly Conservation. p. 27.

  14. Fox, R., Oliver, T.H., Harrower, C., Parsons, M.S., Thomas, C.D. and Roy, D.B. (2014). Long term changes to the frequency of occurrence of British moths are consistent with opposing and synergistic effects of climate and land use changes. Journal of Applied Ecology. 51: 949-957.

  15. Garibaldi, L.A., Pérez-Méndez, N., Garratt, M.P., Gemmill-Herren, B., Miguez, F.E. and Dicks, L.V. (2019). Policies for ecological intensification of crop production. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 34(4): 282-286.

  16. Goulson, D., Hanley, M.E., Darvill, B., Ellis, J.S. and Knight, M.E. (2005). Causes of rarity in bumblebees. Biological Conservation. 122(1): 1-8.

  17. Habel, J.C., Ulrich, W., Biburger, N., Seibold, S. and Schmitt, T. (2019). Agricultural intensification drives butterfly decline. Insect Conservation and Diversity. 12(4): 289-295.

  18. Hajek, A.E., Hurley, B.P., Kenis, M., Garnas, J.R., Bush, S.J., Wingfield, M.J. and Cock, M.J. (2016). Exotic biological control agents: A solution or contribution to arthropod invasions? Biological Invasions. 18(4): 953-969.

  19. Hallmann, C.A., Sorg, M., Jongejans, E., Siepel, H., Hofland, N., Schwan, H. and de Kroon H. (2017). More than 75 per cent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas. PloS one. 12(10). doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0185809.

  20. Hallmann, C.A., Zeegers, T. and van Klink, R. (2020). Declining abundance of beetles, moths and caddisflies in the Netherlands. Insect Conservation and Diversity. 13: 127-139.

  21. Halsch, C.A., Code, A., Hoyle, S.M., Fordyce, J.A., Baert, N. and Forister, M.L. (2020). Pesticide contamination of milkweeds across the agricultural, urban and open spaces of low elevation Northern California. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. 8: 162.

  22. Harmon, J.P., Stephens, E. and Losey, J. (2006). The decline of native coccinellids (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) in the United States and Canada. In: Beetle Conservation. Springer, Dordrecht. (pp. 85-94).

  23. Hayes, T.B. and Hansen, M. (2017). From silent spring to silent night: Agrochemicals and the anthropocene. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene. 5: 57. doi.org/10.1525/ elementa.246.

  24. Heimpel, G.E. and Cock, M.J. (2018). Shifting paradigms in the history of classical biological control. BioControl. 63(1): 27-37.

  25. Hoddle, M.S. (2004). Restoring balance: Using exotic species to control invasive exotic species. Conservation Biology. 18(1): 38-49.

  26. Homburg, K., Drees, C. and Boutaud, E. (2019). Where have all the beetles gone? Long term study reveals carabid species decline in a nature reserve in Northern Germany. Insect Conservation and Diversity. 12: 268-277.

  27. Hussain, B., Ahmad, B. and Bilal, S. (2015). Monitoring and mass trapping of the codling moth, Cydia pomonella, by the use of pheromone baited traps in Kargil, Ladakh, India. International Journal of Fruit Science. 15(1): 1-9.

  28. IUCN Bangladesh. (2015). Red list of Bangladesh: a brief on assessment result 2015. IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature, Bangladesh Country Office, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

  29. Jenderejian, K., Hakobyan, S. and Stapanian M. A. (2012). Trends in benthic macroinvertebrate community biomass and energy budgets in Lake Sevan, 1928-2004. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. 184(11): 6647-6671.

  30. Kalkman, V.J., Boudot, J.P., Bernard, R., Conze, K.J., De Knijf G., Dyatlova, E., Ferreira, S., Jovic, M., Ott, J., Riservato, E. and Sahlén, G. (2010). European red list of dragonflies. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.

  31. Kawahara, A.Y., Reeves, L.E., Barber, J.R. and Black, S.H. (2021). Eight simple actions that individuals can take to save insects from global declines. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 118(2). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2002547117.

  32. Kosior, A., Celary, W., Olejniczak, P., Fijał, J., Krol, W., Solarz, W. and Płonka, P. (2007). The decline of the bumble bees and cuckoo bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Bombini) of western and central Europe. Oryx. 41(1): 79-88.

  33. Kremen, C., Williams, N.M. and Thorp, R.W. (2002). Crop pollination from native bees at risk from agricultural intensification. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). 99: 16812-16.

  34. Krischik, V., Rogers, M., Gupta, G. and Varshney, A. (2015). Soil-applied imidacloprid translocates to ornamental flowers and reduces survival of adult Coleomegilla maculata, Harmonia axyridis and Hippodamia convergens lady beetles and larval Danaus plexippus and Vanessa cardui butterflies. PloS one. 10(3): e0119133.

  35. Lundgren, P., Kiryukhin, A., Milillo, P. and Samsonov, S. (2015). Dike model for the 2012-2013 Tolbachik eruption constrained by satellite radar interferometry observations. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research. 307: 79-88.

  36. Malone, L.A. and Pham-Delègue, M.H. (2001). Effects of transgene products on honey bees (Apis mellifera) and bumblebees (Bombus sp.). Apidologie. 32(4): 287-304.

  37. McGuinness, C.A. (2007). Carabid beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) conservation in New Zealand. Journal of Insect Conservation. 11(1): 31-41.

  38. Møller, A.P. (2019). Parallel declines in abundance of insects and insectivorous birds in Denmark over 22 years. Ecology and Evolution. 9(11): 6581-6587.

  39. Nakamura, Y., (2011). Conservation of butterflies in Japan: status, actions and strategy. Journal of Insect Conservation. 15(1): 5-22.

  40. Nakanishi, K., Yokomizo, H. and Hayashi, T.I. (2018). Were the sharp declines of dragonfly populations in the 1990s in Japan caused by fipronil and imidacloprid? An analysis of Hill’s causality for the case of Sympetrum frequens. Environmental Science and Pollution Research. 25: 35352-35364.

  41. Nemesio, A. (2013). Are orchid bees at risk? First comparative survey suggests declining populations of forest-dependent species. Brazilian Journal of Biology. 73: 367-74.

  42. Ollerton, J., Erenler, H., Edwards, M. and Crockett, R. (2014). Extinctions of aculeate pollinators in Britain and the role of large-scale agricultural changes. Science. 346(6215): 1360-1362.

  43. Ollerton, J., Winfree, R. and Tarrant, S. (2011). How many flowering plants are pollinated by animals? Oikos. 120(3): 321-326.

  44. Powney, G.D., Carvell, C., Edwards, M., Morris, R.K.A. and Roy, H.E. (2019). Widespread losses of pollinating insects in Britain. Naturte Communications. 10: 1018. doi: 10.1038/ s41467-019-08974-9.

  45. Pöyry, J., Carvalheiro, L.G., Heikkinen, R.K., Kühn, I., Kuussaari, M., Schweiger, O. and Franzén, M. (2017). The effects of soil eutrophication propagate to higher trophic levels. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 26(1): 18-30.

  46. Raven, P.H. and Wagner, D.L. (2021). Agricultural intensification and climate change are rapidly decreasing insect biodiversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 118(2). doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2002548117.

  47. Samways, M.J., Barton, P., Birkhofer, K., Chichorro, F., Deacon, C. and Fartmann, T. (2020). Solutions for humanity on how to conserve insects. Biological Conservation. 242: 108427.

  48. Sanchez-Bayo, F. and Wyckhuys, K.A.G. (2021). Further evidence for a global decline of the entomofauna. Austral Entomology. 60(1): 9-26.

  49. Sanchez-Bayo, F. and Wyckhuys, K.A.G. (2019). Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers. Biological Conservation. 232: 8-27.

  50. Schuch, S., Wesche, K. and Schaefer M. (2012). Long-term decline in the abundance of leafhoppers and planthoppers (Auchenorrhyncha) in Central European protected dry grasslands. Biological Conservation. 149(1): 75-83.

  51. Smith, M.R., Singh, G.M., Mozaffarian, D. and Myers, S.S. (2015). Effects of decreases of animal pollinators on human nutrition and global health: A modelling analysis. The Lancet. 386: 1964-1972.

  52. Stork, N.E. (2018). How many species of insects and other terrestrial arthropods are there on earth? Annual Review of Entomology. 63: 31-45.

  53. Theng, M., Jusoh, W.F.A., Jain, A., et al. (2020). A comprehensive assessment of diversity loss in a well documented tropical insect fauna: Almost half of Singapore’s butterfly species extirpated in 160 years. Biological Conservation. 242: 108401.

  54. Van der Sluijs, J.P. (2020). Insect decline, an emerging global environmental risk. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 46: 9-42.

  55. Van der Sluijs, J.P. and Vaage, N.S. (2016). Pollinators and global food security: The need for holistic global stewardship. Food Ethics. 1(1): 75-91.

  56. Van der Sluijs, J.P., Amaral-Rogers, V., Belzunces, L.P., Van Lexmond, M.B., Bonmatin, J.M., Chagnon, M., et al. (2015). Conclusions of the worldwide integrated assessment on the risks of neonicotinoids and fipronil to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Environmental Science and Pollution Research. 22(1): 148-154.

  57. Van Swaay, C., Cuttelod, A., Collins, S., Maes, D., Munguira, M.L., Sasic, M., Settele, J., Verovnik, R., Verstrael, T., Warren, M., Wiemers, M. and Wynhoff, I. (2010). European red list of butterflies. Publications office of the European Union, Luxembourg. 

  58. VanEngelsdorp, D., Caron, D., Hayes, J., Underwood, R., Henson, M., Rennich, K., et al. (2012). A national survey of managed honey bee 2010-11 winter colony losses in the USA: Results from the Bee Informed Partnership. Journal of Apicultural Research. 51(1): 115-124.

  59. Wagner, D.L. (2020). Insect declines in the anthropocene. Annual Review of Entomology. 65: 457-80.

  60. Wagner, D.L., Gramesa, E.M., Foristerb, M.L., Berenbaumc, M.R. and Stopak, D. (2021). Insect decline in the anthropocene: Death by a thousand cuts. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 118: 1-10.

  61. Warren, M.S. (2019). Conserving British butterflies: Progress against the odds. Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society. 61: 3-6.

  62. Warren, M.S., Maes, D., Chris, A.M., Swaay, V., Goffart, P., Dyck, H.V., Nigel, A.D., Wynhoff, B., Hoare, D. and Ellis, S. (2021). The decline of butterflies in Europe: Problems, significance and possible solutions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2002551117.

  63. Wilcox, A.A.E., Flockhart, D.T.T., Newman, A.E.M. and Norris, D.R. (2019). An evaluation of studies on the potential threats contributing to the decline of eastern migratory North American monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus). Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. 7: 99.

  64. Wilson, E.O. (2002). The future of life. Abacus, Time Warner Book Group, London, UK.
In this Article
    Contact us
    Follow us

    Editorial Board

    View all (0)