Submitted by PHealthy t3_11ebbka in askscience
lollroller t1_jaencos wrote
Reply to comment by PHealthy in Are we past the tipping point for the insect population decline? by PHealthy
Nonsense, warmer climate = higher biodiversity, not lower. This is not debatable
Pesticides yes, pollution debatable; habitat loss not a problem, there is plenty of planet surface left; insect populations can and will shift easily, they won’t just stay in place and become extinct; and these obviously aren’t climate issues.
There are plenty more real problems to worry about
beaucoupBothans t1_jaerfyo wrote
It's a range and species have adapted to live in those ranges from desert to arctic. It is true that higher diversity is in temperate and tropical climates but that does not mean that rising temperatures in those zones will equate to even higher diversity or that increases in hot or colder climates will automatically equate to higher biodiversity. Most species have evolved to exist in the relatively narrow ranges to which they have adapted. Or have over millennia developed adaptations for ranges of temperatures like migration and hibernation. Changes in temperatures will affect these behaviors and affect diversity. We are already seeing this in marginal climates.
lollroller t1_jaetn36 wrote
Yes, but in general, warming will not eliminate niches, but rather shift them about, and not overnight neither.
Regarding whether the tropics will become more bio diverse, didn’t insect diversity peak during the Cretaceous, when the Earth was considerably warmer? So I think it is reasonable to think that this might actually happen.
beaucoupBothans t1_jaeuf9l wrote
Because it is not something that happens in the timescales we would need or want it to happen.
PHealthy OP t1_jaev06x wrote
And that rapid climate warming doesn't result in tropics, it results in deserts.
PHealthy OP t1_jaep2wd wrote
Right, I suppose you don't think there's an anthropocene mass extinction?
Read this:
lollroller t1_jaese3z wrote
No, I don’t think so. I’ve read that “article” before, but admittedly have not pursued the primary studies.
The meta-analyses they quote range from:
“In 2020, three large metaanalyses appeared, two of which focused on insects. The first, van Klink et al. (17, 18), examined 166 studies with demographic data spanning 9 to 80 y. Their assessment, driven largely by European and North American datasets, suggested terrestrial insects were declining at a rate close to 1% per year, while aquatic insects appeared to be increasing in abundance, again by about 1% per year.”
To:
“Crossley et al.’s (51) metaanalysis of insect demographic data (spanning 4 to 36 y) for 15 long-term ecological research sites across the United States, reported no evidence of a continent-wide decline of insect abundance.”
They repeatedly mention loss of habitat, while conveniently leaving out that the vast, vast surface area of the planet remains unaffected by humans. Of course human encroachment and loss of habitat have and will continue to cause populations to geographically shift, but I can see no reasonable mechanism by which it will cause insect species to become extinct, let alone cause mass extinctions.
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