Insects in protected areas contaminated with pesticides

"Bees, butterflies, flies and other insects in German protected areas are contaminated with a toxic cocktail of substances that are used in intensive agriculture. Are the chemicals the cause of insect death in Germany?

It was almost exactly four years ago that the small Entomological Association in Krefeld became famous overnight. At that time, the predominantly volunteer employees succeeded in scientifically demonstrating what until then was nothing more than a bad feeling: insects are dying in Germany.

In a new study, in which the entomologists from Krefeld were again involved, Carsten Brühl from the Institute for Environmental Sciences at the University of Koblenz-Landau is now investigating the causes of the loss.

The study, which appeared in the scientific journal Scientific Reports, supports the suspicion that has long been held that the use of pesticides in intensive agriculture is one of the main reasons for the sharp decline in flies and butterflies, beetles, wasps, bees and other insects in Germany . In 2017, the entomologists from Krefeld showed that the mass of insects had decreased by an average of 76 percent since 1989.

As then, the entomologists were once again on the move with their "malaise traps", tent-like structures in which flying insects get caught. The animals are then preserved in alcohol on site. For the current study, they set up the traps from April to October 2020 in various regions of Germany. All 21 locations examined were located in protected areas that belong to the European Natura 2000 system of protected areas.

A neonicotinoid, which had been banned for a long time, was also found at 16 locations

It is all the more frightening that the researchers were able to detect a whole cocktail of pesticides in all samples. To do this, they examined the alcohol in which they had preserved the trapped insects for 92 of the most common substances used in agriculture. According to the study, the pesticides discovered must come from the insects, as the alcohol is a solvent for many chemicals that are on or in the bodies of the animals.

According to the results, the insects in the protected areas were exposed to an average of 16 different pesticides, at one location it was even 27. In total, the researchers were able to detect 47 different substances, including residues of the herbicides S-metolachlor and prosulfocarb. The fungicides azoxystrobin and fluopyram were contained in samples from all locations and the neonicotinoid thiacloprid, which is now banned throughout the EU, in 16.

 

It has long been known that useful insects also come into contact with pesticides that were actually developed to control pests. The same applies to the realization that the toxic substances do not stay on the field on which they are used, but spread into the environment.

Most studies on the spread of pesticides, however, focus on residues of these substances in bodies of water. How much insects themselves are contaminated with pesticides, however, has hardly been investigated so far and if so, then mostly only individual substances.

"Far too little is known about the combined effects of whole cocktails of different pesticides and their metabolites on insects," the scientists write. According to the authors of the study, the fact that the toxic substances on insects could be detected in the middle of nature reserves can be explained by the fact that all the areas examined are close to fields that are intensively cultivated. "To this day, biodiversity-promoting agriculture without the use of pesticides is an exception both within and on the immediate periphery of the most valuable protected areas," write Thomas Hörren and Martin Sorg from the Entomological Association in Krefeld in a statement.

In the opinion of the study authors, in order to at least reduce the pollution of nature reserves with pesticides in the future, at least buffer zones should be set up around such areas in which the use of pesticides is prohibited."

 

Since we have bureaucrats whose job it is to control the use of pesticides in Lithuania, patients with cancer can give blood samples to the laboratory. These samples could be dried out from frozen state to preserve the pesticides available in the blood. Pesticides can be extracted from the remaining dry matter with an alcoholic solution. Pesticides accumulate in the body's fatty substances, which are also present in the blood. Because pesticides destroy everything that lives, it destroys the human immune system, accelerating the development of cancer. Cancer is a very serious disease, the state must compensate patients for improper control of pesticides in food and fraudulent advertising of Lithuanian food as good for health.