Insect population decline leaves Australian scientists scratching for solutions

A global crash in insect populations has found its way to Australia, with entomologists across the country reporting lower than average numbers of wild insects.

Entomologists are concerned Australia's insect populations are in decline.

University of Sydney entomologist Dr Cameron Webb said researchers around the world widely acknowledge that insect populations are in decline, but are at a loss to determine the cause.

"On one hand it might be the widespread use of insecticides, on the other hand it might be urbanisation and the fact that we're eliminating some of the plants where it's really critical that these insects complete their development," Dr Webb said.

"Add in to the mix climate change and sea level rise and it's incredibly difficult to predict exactly what it is."

Entomologist and owner of the Australian Insect Farm, near Innisfail in far north Queensland, Jack Hasenpusch is usually able to collect swarms of wild insects at this time of year.

Read the ABC News story by Mark Rigby - “Insect population decline leaves Australian scientists scratching for solutions.”

The changing disease climate

Virus and bacterial diseases don’t appear out of nowhere, and most require a host to stay active, reproduce and evolve. Insects and other animals play a key role in this - around 60 percent of infectious diseases that affect humans are zoonotic – which means they’re spread from animals to humans.

Australia has never experienced a large outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

But this is a pattern also true of 75 percent of new or emerging infectious diseases.

Tracking disease prevalence, spread and movement among populations of animals is the role of veterinary epidemiologists like Dr Simon Firestone, Professor Mark Stevenson and Dr Anke Wiethoelter at the University of Melbourne.

“A nice analogy would be that a traditional veterinarian’s client is a single animal; a veterinary epidemiologist’s client is the country and all the farms and animals in that ecosystem,” Professor Stevenson says.

Read University of Melbourne Pursuit story - “The changing disease climate.”

Historical significance might soon have more important future consequences

Insects might soon be
standard fare for everyone.

Our penchant for eating meat might have historical significance, but it might have even more important contemporary and future consequences.

Westerners have long based their diet around meat and while our growing physical size of both our bodies and brains has been attributed to meat, it could also be our undoing.

People in the world’s developing countries, which are among the world’s most populous nations, are quickly acquiring a taste for meat and so there is an ever increasing demand for meat on the world market.

Production of meat is environmentally inefficient and worsens the conditions that lead to climate change.

There is, however, and answer and the world’s burgeoning population, which is expected to be 10 or 11 billion by the end of this century, now needs to think seriously about vegetarianism and eating insects.

Just today the Huffington Post has discussed the need for humans to change their diets and consider adding a new form of protein – insects!

The idea is discussed in a story headed:  “Forget The Hamburger; Insects Are Better For You And The Planet”.