Referring to the research carried out by German enthusiasts from the Krefeld Entomological Society, the authors of the article published in the authoritative scientific journal Science Mag, assure: insects have decreased in recent years. Far less.
And the drivers were the first to notice this: the windshields of their cars now remain clean even on fast country trips. But before - remember - they were completely stained, it was necessary to intensively wash them from the remains of all sorts of flies, bugs and other moths. Drivers bought special cleaning fluids. And now they are not needed. There is all kind of dirt, no remains.
Before, insects broke on windshields, but now - they - glass - remain clean.
"The windshield phenomenon" - this is how entomologists called the situation that has developed now throughout Europe. He confirms better than others: something is wrong with nature.
More rigorous observations show that in about a quarter of a century, the number of insects has decreased by as much as 80 percent. Scientists obtained such a depressing result by comparing the number of flies and bugs that fell into the traps before and now.
Entomologists sin primarily on chemistry: they say, the culprit is the farmers and other agricultural workers who poison insects with insecticides. They poison - supposedly harmful, but everyone perishes.
There is, however, another hypothesis: the shapes of modern cars have become more streamlined - this makes fewer bugs hitting them.
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Earth has entered another era of mass extinction
Something tells: all such entomologists are right. After all, the reduction in the number of insects may be part of a larger-scale process - the mass extinction of living beings in general - the sixth in a row.
That it began was announced by American scientists from Princeton, Stanford, California universities and their Mexican colleagues from the National Autonomous University of Mexico City. They, as they say, looked around, were horrified and prepared an appropriate report. It is published in Science Advances.
According to biologists, extinction is organized by humanity itself, provoked by its destructive activities for the planet.
Since 1500, 320 species of vertebrates have irrevocably left our world since 1500, said one of the leaders of the study, the Bing Professor of Population Studies in biology and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
Previously, once every 100 years, two species of mammals died out by force, now the rate of extinction has increased almost 100 times. And it is approaching the one with which the species became extinct 65 million years ago, when the Earth parted with the dinosaurs.
BTW
One planet is not enough for us
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has been sounding the alarm for many years. In his next report on the state of the Earth's biological resources, he said that these resources have decreased by about a third over the past 40 years.
In other words, we have already "used" one third of our planet for our needs - we ate and digested, burned, cut down, poisoned, killed with windshields. Moreover, the rate of "consumption" for the reporting period has doubled.
The most wasteful, according to naturalists, are Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Denmark, the USA, Belgium, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Ireland. If everyone lived like this, then for the further existence of mankind it took five more such planets as ours.
Russia, by the way, treats its home planet very carefully (in comparison with many others) - it takes 33rd place in the list of pests.
Along the way, experts noted that biodiversity is rapidly decreasing. And life on the planet is getting poorer. Every year 25 thousand species of animals and plants disappear from it.
REFERENCE
Scientists identify 5 mass extinctions
1. Ordovician-Silurian: 450 million years ago, 60 percent of then inhabited invertebrates disappeared. The presumable reason is the movement of the supercontinent Gondwana, which led to a cooling and a drop in the water level in the world's oceans.
2. Devonian extinction: 370 million years ago, half of the marine animals died. The presumable reason is water poisoning by volcanic products.
3. Permian (great) extinction: 250 million years ago, 96 percent of marine species and 70 percent of terrestrial species died.
Probable reason: the eruption of a huge number of volcanoes at once.
4. Triassic extinction: 200 million years ago, half of the animals died, including most of the archosaurs - the predecessors of dinosaurs. The likely cause is some mysterious climatic change.
5. Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction: 65 million years ago the dinosaurs became extinct. Who killed them is not known exactly. Maybe all the same volcanoes or asteroids.
Five "major" extinctions did not lead to the fact that life on Earth disappeared. For example, if you believe some hypotheses, could have happened on Mars or on Venus. Our living creatures were reborn. It took millions of years, but the planet remained inhabited, although the "population" sometimes changed beyond recognition.
What will be the result of the current - "Sixth Extinction"? There is a fear that we will not know the answer to this question, since we ourselves will become extinct. But maybe people will be replaced by some other species - more intelligent?
VLADIMIR LAGOVSKY