Insectageddon

Insects are vital to pollinate crops feeding the world, but have pesticides wrought irreparable damage on the ecosystem?

Where are all the insects going? To anyone suffering from the overenthusiastic attention of a cloud of mosquitoes or lamenting the effects of leaf-munching creepy crawlies in their back garden, it might seem like a ridiculous question, but it is one that many scientists have been asking for some time now.

Since the 1970s, according to one report from UK ecologists, half of all insects in Europe may have been lost as a result of intensive farming, the heavy use of pesticides and climate change.

Another 2019 study, in the journal Biological Conservation, warned that globally at least 40 percent of the remaining 1 million known species of insects are believed to be facing extinction.