Car 'splatometer' tests reveal huge decline in number of insects

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/car-splatometer-tests-reveal-huge-decline-number-insects

Car ‘splatometer’ tests reveal huge decline in number of insects

Damian Carrington Environment editor

Wed 12 Feb 2020 20.00 GMT Last modified on Thu 13 Feb 2020 01.15 GMT

Two scientific studies of the number of insects splattered by cars have revealed a huge decline in abundance at European sites in two decades.

The research adds to growing evidence of what some scientists have called an “insect apocalypse”, which is threatening a collapse in the natural world that sustains humans and all life on Earth. A third study shows plummeting numbers of aquatic insects in streams.

The survey of insects hitting car windscreens in rural Denmark used data collected every summer from 1997 to 2017 and found an 80% decline in abundance. It also found a parallel decline in the number of swallows and martins, birds that live on insects.

The second survey, in the UK county of Kent in 2019, examined splats in a grid placed over car registration plates, known as a “splatometer”. This revealed 50% fewer impacts than in 2004. The research included vintage cars up to 70 years old to see if their less aerodynamic shape meant they killed more bugs, but it found that modern cars actually hit slightly more insects.
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The Danish research, published in the journal Ecology and Evolution, used data from an average of 65 car journeys a year on the same stretch of road and at the same speed between 1997 and 2017. Møller took account of the time of day, temperature, wind speed and date of the journey and found an 80% decline in insect abundance over the 21-year period. Checks using insect nets and sticky traps showed the same trend.

Møller said the causes were likely to be “a bit of everything”, but noted significant changes due to global heating. “In my 50 years, the temperature in April, May and June has increased by 1.5C [2.7F] on average in my study area,” he said. “The amount of rain has increased by 50%. We are talking about dramatic differences.”
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[Duppers]

1. Not only bird populations are dying but bats.

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