Can I save the insects?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 December 2019
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Buzzing insects that sting and fall into your food can be annoying. But perhaps we should think twice before taking aim with the fly swatter because bug populations around the world are in rapid decline. This worries CrowdScience listener Daria; she wants to know what will happen to our food production without the help from our tiny friends – the pollinators? And what can she do, as a city-dweller, to help the bugs?
The dollar value of agricultural services that insects supply – for free – is estimated to be 350 billion dollars worldwide. For scientists, a major challenge is the lack of long-term studies of insects on a global scale – in fact – entomologists worry that species are dying out faster than we can document their existence. The culprits, they believe, are climate change, invasive species, land-use and pesticides.
CrowdScience speaks to the scientists who want to save the bugs; one project capitalises on the chemical signals that attract certain species of pollinators while others are building ‘bee hotels’ to encourage native bees back into our cities.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Produced by Louisa Field for BBC World Service. (Photo: Hoverfly on Yellow Dandelion Flower. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello and welcome to Crowd Science. This is the show that's powered by listener's curiosity, fortunately a source that's both plentiful and renewable. |
| 0:47.0 | For those who are new to the show, we take a question about anything scientific and try and find answers. |
| 0:53.2 | Today we're looking at insect decline. |
| 1:07.8 | My name is Daria, I'm Russian but living in the capital of Germany, Berlin. I want crowd science to find out what is going on with our insects. |
| 1:11.7 | I have read that their numbers are declining around the world. |
| 1:14.8 | If this continues, what will happen with our crops that rely on insects for pollination? |
| 1:19.4 | As someone who lives in the city, is there anything I can do to help the insects. |
| 1:24.1 | Is this something that you've noticed personally fewer insects or are you just |
| 1:28.8 | going by articles that you've read? It is hard to say I mean I think since I heard about it first last time I have paid attention a bit more and I noticed that for instance if you take a long trip out of town which we sometimes might do on a car. You have far less insects dying in a windshield |
| 1:45.9 | than you would normally do. I remember cycling as a kid and when you go down this big hill near my house at speed you really had to keep |
| 1:56.2 | your mouth shut because otherwise you just you just inhale a whole bunch of |
| 2:00.6 | insects and now not so much? No, not really, yeah. I remember how my father always |
| 2:07.6 | had to wash his car really, really well after we would take like four or five hours from one town to another to normally from Moscow where we live to my grandparents up north and |
| 2:19.0 | that would it would be completely covered in those like smashed yellow dead bugs and nowadays we would have five |
| 2:27.4 | hour trip across Germany and very little of this would happen. A recent scientific report shows that in the country |
| 2:38.5 | where Daria lives, Germany, insect numbers have declined by 75% over a 27 year period. |
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