Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday June 09 2020, @11:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the time-to-grow-your-own dept.

Milkweed, only food source for monarch caterpillars, ubiquitously contaminated:

New evidence identifies 64 pesticide residues in milkweed, the main food for monarch butterflies in the west. Milkweed samples from all of the locations studied in California's Central Valley were contaminated with pesticides, sometimes at levels harmful to monarchs and other insects.

The study raises alarms for remaining western monarchs, a population already at a precariously small size. Over the last few decades their overwintering numbers have plummeted to less than 1% of the population size than in the 1980s—which is a critically low level.

[...] "We expected to find some pesticides in these plants, but we were rather surprised by the depth and extent of the contamination," said Matt Forister, a butterfly expert, biology professor at the University of Nevada, Reno and co-author of the paper. "From roadsides, from yards, from wildlife refuges, even from plants bought at stores—doesn't matter from where—it's all loaded with chemicals. We have previously suggested that pesticides are involved in the decline of low elevation butterflies in California, but the ubiquity and diversity of pesticides we found in these milkweeds was a surprise."

[...] While this is only a first look at the possible risks these pesticides pose to western monarchs, the findings indicate the troubling reality that key breeding grounds for western monarchs are contaminated with pesticides at harmful levels.

"One might expect to see sad looking, droopy plants that are full of pesticides, but they are all big beautiful looking plants, with the pesticides hiding in plain sight," Forister, who has been a professor int he University's College of Science since 2008, said.

Journal Reference
Halsch, Christopher A., Code, Aimee, Hoyle, Sarah M., et al. Pesticide Contamination of Milkweeds Across the Agricultural, Urban, and Open Spaces of Low-Elevation Northern California, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2020.00162)


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @06:54PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @06:54PM (#1005940)

    Hey I want to follow up on this. Can you please cite a source for

    a single seed that has been treated with neonicotinoids is enough to kill a song bird

    so I can use it? Also, you seem very well educated on this topic. Is there a "consumer reports" style independent body that you know of that reviews pesticides and their impacts on various life forms?

    I hope you come back and reply. I'll check this post a few times in the coming days.

    Regardless, thank you for the informative post. Assuming it's truth, it's very interesting.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @07:19AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @07:19AM (#1006202)

    Not the AC but see this:
    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-15446-x.epdf [nature.com]
    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/09/widely-used-pesticide-makes-birds-lose-weight/ [nationalgeographic.com]

    A first ever study of birds in the wild found that a migrating songbird that ate the equivalent of one or two seeds treated with a neonicotinoid insecticide suffered immediate weight loss, forcing it to delay its journey.

    Although the birds recovered, the delay could severely harm their chances of surviving and reproducing, say the Canadian researchers whose study is published today in Science.

    “We show a clear link between neonicotinoid exposure at real-world levels and an impact on birds,” says lead author Margaret Eng, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Saskatchewan Toxicology Center.