Is Costa Rica in an Insect Apocalypse

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The world is on a path to becoming almost insect free, according to the latest study published by the Journal of Biological Conservation, who declared the 2.5 percent rate of insect annual loss as “shocking”. “It is very rapid. In 10 years you will have a quarter less insects, in 50 years you will have half less, and in 100 years you will have none,” said scientist Francisco Sanchez-Bayo, author of the study.
The loss will tragically impact birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that eat insects to live. Said Sanchez-Bayo, “If this food source is taken away, all these animals starve to death.” He cites Puerto Rico as an example where a recent study revealed a 98 percent decline in ground insects over the last 35 years, and a dramatic reduction in the number of animals who rely on them as a source of food.
The Costa Rican national park La Selva was included in the research for this study, and it was discovered that despite this being a “protected” area, the park was also suffering from rapid insect loss. The study concluded that although the warning signs of plummeting insect populations have been known for years, the extent of the potentially catastrophic crisis had not been well understood until now.

What is causing this insect apocalypse? Scientists blame many factors including use of pesticides, habitat loss, and most alarmingly: global warming. The average high temperature in the rainforest has increased by 4 degrees Fahrenheit (2.2 degrees Celsius) in recent years, and bugs are unable to control their internal body heat and die.
Scientists tell us that insects are essential for the proper functioning of all ecosystems, as food for other creatures, and as pollinators and recyclers of nutrients. The new study incorporates unusually strong language, which Sanchez-Bayo claims is not alarmist. “We really wanted to wake people up. When you consider that 80 percent of the biomass of insects has disappeared in 25-30 years, it is a big concern.”
According to this latest study, insects are going extinct at a rate 8 times faster than mammals, birds and reptiles, yet many other animals rely on them for food, so they are crucial to the whole ecosystem structure. One entomologist described a future on earth as a flowerless world with silent forests, a world of dung and rotting carcasses in cities and roadsides with no beetles to process them – a world of collapse and decay.
Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson sums up the importance of bugs to our world by calling them “The little things that run the world.”
 

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