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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
[...] Because the crooning of the crickets has quietened in recent years and may be becoming a thing of the past. There is strong evidence that large numbers of crickets and grasshoppers (known, along with mantises, earwigs and cockroaches as the "Orthoptera") are declining across Europe. A 2017 review of European species showed that over 30% of the 1,000 European species were in decline while only 3% were increasing. As with many insects, we simply don't know what is happening to most of the rest.
The problem is that recent work has suggested that all insect species, including Orthoptera, are declining – the so-called "insect Armageddon."
A 2017 study found that the abundance of flying insects has plunged by 75% over the past 25 years. One member of the study team, Professor Dave Goulson of Sussex University, said at the time: "Insects make up about two-thirds of all life on Earth [but] there has been some kind of horrific decline."
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Friday August 10 2018, @03:06PM (1 child)
CCD continues only slightly abated, and honey bee populations have not recovered, but "africanized honeybees" do not do the useful things honeybees do. Nor have they been affected by CCD.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 10 2018, @03:41PM
Mostly this is because africanized honeybees haven't been bred to be dirty, lazy, honey-producers. Africanized bees have strong grooming and cleanliness, which prevents mites from affecting the health of the hive. They are also not shipped all around to agricultural hotspots that are covered in pesticides, or kept in hives that are constantly disrupted due to inspections (and most commercial hives are not designed to help the bees keep a clean hive or stable internal temperature). They are still useful as pollinators, but not as much for european-style beekeeping.