Talk:Decline in insect populations

How much weight to give to the climate change aspect as a cause?

I tried to tighten up the content about climate change in this article. We had mentioned it as a cause in passing here and there but without properly explaining the possible mechanisms. The paper by Sanchez that we had already cited a lot placed climate change last in the list of importance. So I think in the section on causes we need to give more weight to the other causes and make it clearer how climate change leads to more decline (explaining/listing the possible mechanisms) but that it's probably not the main driver (right?). This could also be clarified in the lead. For now, I have added an excerpt of the article extinction risk from climate change as it also had a section on insects there. EMsmile (talk) 21:33, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

There are a variety of putative causes but we don't seem to know enough to quantify the weights. The cause which seems to need more attention and weight in the article is light pollution. See Light pollution is key 'bringer of insect apocalypse', for example. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:45, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Interesting. We do mention light pollution in passing but it should get more content. Overall, that whole section on the causes is surprisingly weak so far. If someone has time it would be great if they could beef it up. EMsmile (talk) 11:16, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Insect Evolution

Insects populations adapt usually faster than animals to changing environments. It might be insects learned to avoid high ways or illuminated balconies over decades. If true, would not mean that there is no decline, but that the decline is less than measured.

Is there any study on this? 2A02:1210:2E1A:500:485D:EDDD:7CD3:B4D8 (talk) 13:34, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

This study describes artificial light at night (ALAN) as a "potent evolutionary trap".

Most anthropogenic disturbances have natural analogs: the climate has warmed before, habitats have fragmented, species have invaded new ranges, and new pesticides (also known as plant defenses) have been developed. Yet for all of evolutionary time, the daily cycle of light and dark, the lunar cycle, and the annual cycle of the seasons have all remained constant. Until now (Altermatt and Ebert, 2016), insects have had no cause to evolve any relevant adaptations to ALAN. ... ALAN can also interact with other anthropogenic disturbances such as climate change or noise pollution in complex ways (McMahon et al., 2017; Miller et al., 2017; Walker et al., 2019). For example, pollinator insects pushed from agricultural fields to road verges by pesticides will be more exposed to streetlights and vehicle headlights (Phillips et al., 2019).

Andrew🐉(talk) 18:17, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

EBML content

@Justin.m.crocker: you probably should not add research to wikipiedia in which you have participated in it, per WP:SELFCITE. As a result Smartse reverted your addition. I reverted that removal and partially added it back, as I found it to be too detailed. However, I dont have a problem with the overall inclusion of the content. Feel free to discuss here. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 14:44, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good, it was mainly a liftover from the German

site. I'm happy with the content.

Justin.m.crocker (talk) 14:49, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I took a look at the content outside of the SELFCITE issue. What remained though is pretty iffy for inclusion here for super WP:PRIMARY research. The study itself was just a laboratory study primarily on fruit flies. That's kind of equivalent to WP:MEDINVITRO for human medicine where those results rarely translate up to field-level. It's not actually showing anything about declines in insect populations that would place a citation here either. They did look at a mosquito and caterpillar pest too. The study wasn't looking at non-target insects though. Ultimately, the recent addition didn't address @Smartse's concerned about WP:WEIGHT.

Ultimately the study is a pretty standard bioassay study, so it's not clear why it would be included here even outside of the above issues in terms of WP:DUE. Researchers look at lethal and sublethal effects all the time in the literature both for target and non-target insects, and the literature is pretty vast if we were to start adding studies of this level and relatedness to the topic. If a review were saying, "Species X populations have declined due to a sublethal effect of pesticide Y. . ." then that could be reason for inclusion here (more likely just at the species article though). This study is many tiers of evidence below that level though. It's also a scope issue. this article is focused on population declines, and that isn't quite the same as how pesticides affect insects. KoA (talk) 16:47, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

We dont have MEDRS standards on this bio data, so your comparison to wikipedia standards for medical articles is false. Please explain why the content is undue without the excessive detail. Seems you are stating a study on pesticides and insects is unrelated to this article? That claim is absurd. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:48, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your thorough review, KoA. I respectfully disagree with the assessment that this study lacks relevance or due weight in relation to the topic of insect population declines. Although this research includes laboratory-based bioassays, the findings provide critical insights into how specific pesticides contribute to lethal and sublethal effects on insect species. Importantly, while focused on controlled environments, these results parallel documented field observations on pesticide impacts, which are directly relevant to population-level declines.

This study contributes to a body of work underscoring a mechanistic link between pesticide exposure and adverse effects on insect survival. As such, it aligns with the broader conversation on declines by helping to explain a pathway through which these declines may occur. Laboratory studies are a foundational aspect of ecological research, offering controlled insights that field studies later build upon or validate. Thus, excluding laboratory data dismisses a crucial aspect of scientific evidence.

In terms of WP

, I would argue that because the study offers novel, peer-reviewed findings in Science, a leading journal, it surpasses the threshold for notability and relevance. Including this research enriches the article by presenting new, reputable data that informs public understanding of factors contributing to insect population dynamics. 2003:C7:F746:9A00:21C0:5EA5:352:66D6 (talk) 18:52, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Entomologists do insecticide bioassays like you just described all the time. There's a whole sub-discipline centered around measuring lethal/sublethal effects and using ecologically relevant exposure rates. That is nothing new. How the source was used here though made it seem like it made a novel discovery about lethal/sublethal effects to the point of WP:PUFFERY. The papers main hook was instead more of a methods paper on high-throughput bioassays for performing multiple bioassays on a model organism, a malaria vector, and a crop pest. It's not a paper focused on insect declines. It tangentially mentions it as a justification for why entomologists would want improved bioassay methods, but that's about it.

For us at Wikipedia, this would be very early-stage WP:PRIMARY research here, at least in how it's relevant to an article like this. Instead, we generally try to rely on WP:SECONDARY sources to pick out what primary research is important or WP:DUE in cases like this, such as reviews. If the Wikipedia article were about general lethal and sublethal effects of pesticide on insects, that topic might have a better fit for bioassays like this, but I wouldn't have any reason as an editor to pick out this one study from the thousands of similar bioassay studies out there. That's where the secondary sources like reviews would come in. If we were writing for that type of article, maybe a secondary source would mention this paper as a recent example, but the fundamentals of how to do a bioassay and exploring sublethal effects are already in textbooks. This study wouldn't really change anything there or where the topic intersects in the subject of this article.

For the scope of this article though, I mentioned WP:MEDINVITRO as a parallel above. Drosophila melanogaster laboratory studies can be a bit of an equivalent of doing in-vitro studies in medicine. There are a lot of cautions involved applying that system to other insects, and it would be a huge additional jump to claim a basic bioassay is showing population declines. This paper otherwise only looked at two other species, a mosquito and a crop pest. It didn't even document population declines or tie them to pesticide exposure like other studies on the topic do. Instead, it's a pretty standard bioassay study in terms of what's reported. That's not saying it's bad in itself (far from it), but it's just a very different study than what would be used in this article to any significant degree. KoA (talk) 21:10, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

@KoA: MEDINVITRO doesnt apply to this article. Is paper is from European Molecular Biology Laboratory? Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 00:54, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the Crocker lab at European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) 2003:C7:F708:8B00:13A:EAD8:C7C4:575E (talk) 06:00, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: KoA has never said it applies - they've said it is a similar situation. Where the research was conducted and where the paper was published are completely irrelevant for judging whether it merits inclusion. WP:SCIRS definitely applies here and it states In general, scientific information in Wikipedia articles should be based on published, reliable secondary sources, or on widely cited tertiary and primary sources. which is the essence of what I mentioned in my edit summary (WP:SELFCITE was only part of it). Obviously the authors are going to think the research is important, but it is up to us as editors to determine that, not them, and as a rule of thumb, it is very rarely appropriate to cite primary research as soon as it has been published. SmartSE (talk) 09:13, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

A number of issues going on here. First we are not going to apply MEDRS to this SCI article, so these efforts to quote an unrelated policy are useless. Second, the document you provided states PRIMARY sources are ok (assuming your primary source clam is valid, and I am not clear on this). Regardless, see Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(science)#Respect_primary_sources. Note this what you are referring to as PRIMARY is coming from a notable organization. Certainly their findings are likely going to be DUE on this article. Often we include these type of claims even in the MEDRS genre, such as when the CDC makes a claim in their 'research.' Generally we give these notable govt organizations a pass on these issues. Do the two of you agree to add some form of this or prefer to have an RFC on the issue? Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 21:02, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

There can be no debate about it being a primary source and it's concerning that you are arguing for it's inclusion if you are not able to distinguish primary and secondary sources. The section of SCIRS you refer to says that primary sources can be included if they are shown to be pivotal. Given this paper was just published, that obviously cannot be the case. If you read the section above you will see If a primary source is cited by few or no reliable sources outside the originating lab, the primary source may be removed as not reporting an important result. - that is the exact situation we are in at the moment. Once again, who conducted the research is completely irrelevant. SmartSE (talk) 14:54, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

No, it doesnt say anything like what you are referring to as needing to be pivotal. I will take it that your response means you are opposed to its inclusion in any form (including properly attributing it to the notable source organization). Is my understanding of your position correct? Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 21:47, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

SmartSE just outright quoted the part of SCIRS they were referencing. Please be more mindful of WP:NPA when it comes to making extremely misleading comments about editors including your comments about me as well.

Adding a little to what SmartSE mentions above on primary sources and the guidance in SCIRS, WP:PSTS is policy and is pretty heavy-handed in care needed if using primary sources. If this article was instead about general sources of insect mortality, pesticides would obviously get mentioned and how those effects are measured. This isn't that article though. As I mentioned before, plenty of higher level sources would get used to describe basic info on bioassays well before the thousands of primary studies just like this one doing basic bioassay work (without the puffery issues).

At the end of the day though, it's ultimately a WP:SYNTH issue as mentioned earlier to the point the source was being misrepresented, especially in overstating the novelness in isolation and in the context of this page. That source is not focused on insect population declines, it's a high-throughput bioassay study for three model organisms, not natural populations. If you want to expand content related to pesticides and insect declines here, then use sources that actually focus on that. KoA (talk) 23:35, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

@KoA: In both the abstract and the editors summary, both refer to "insect populations". I am a bit confused how you two are stating this research is off topic (eg triggering SYNTH). "These results suggest that agrochemical exposure, even at sublethal levels, is affecting insect populations. —Sacha Vignieri". Is it your position that the summary from the editor at Science (journal) who is summarizing the findings Lautaro Gandara at European Molecular Biology Laboratory is undue? Maybe the way the earlier editor had added the content was SYNTH (I am not sure) but I would think a direct quote or maybe much more narrow summary would be quite due and non-controversial. Comments? Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 01:13, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I've already re-explained the issue multiple times now including the scope of the source and the scope this article, so please address that directly. At the end of the day, the paper itself is not looking at population declines. Like any research paper, it mentions context for why the work is important in the intro and it mentions potential applications in the conclusions. Those are the isolated cases where insect declines are rarely mentioned in the paper. This isn't the kind of source to spend more time on when secondary sources already give the same basics about pesticide exposure in more direct scope and more depth. KoA (talk) 17:02, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia is WP:NOT a place for us to get into the details of the paper. As you have mentioned there are other papers that you think are more in-depth. However the position of a notable organization is due in this article. Do you think that the position of EBML is undue? Please explain why. The whole thing about your ideas on bioassay is off topic. Please just explain why the position of EBML is undue as a primary source. Wikipedia doesnt have polices that exclude this type of content in this genre, despite editor's attempts here on this talk page to assert they do. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:50, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

The source does not even remotely discuss or reflect "the position" of EMBL regarding insect declines and I'm puzzled how you could think it does. And we do have policies - I have linked to and quoted from them already! SmartSE (talk) 19:18, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Wait, just to be sure, are you saying you haven't read the full primary source at all (not just the summary/abstract) that you're trying to cite? At least based on your comments at Justin Crocker's talk page, it seems like you haven't, so that is concerning. KoA (talk) 23:42, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

• @KoA: you stated in you edit summary in which you reverted my addition that article is subject of 1RR restriction. Are there GS/DS on this article? I dont see anything on the talk page that states that. If there is, it would be helpful if it could be added to the talk page. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:39, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

This talk page should have the pesticide-related notice now. Anything focused on pesticides is considered a Controversial Topic on Wikipedia, so there's some stricter expectations we're asked to follow in that area. Just for background besides 1RR, there are general expectations we hashed out back at that case like handling disputed content like this on the talk page (rather than someone else reinserting it or waiting 24 hours), not casting WP:ASPERSIONS, etc. KoA (talk) 19:18, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

When KoA previously tried a similar assertion at AE, it was ruled that this matter of insect decline was not necessarily in the scope of the GMO case. See archive, "The article edits in question do not fall within the scope of discretionary sanctions." There is therefore no blanket inclusion in the scope of that case. Andrew🐉(talk) 23:54, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Just to make sure it's clear for other editors reading this, that conflicts with ArbCom's actual guidance. The case centered on both GMOs and pesticides as two distinct topics. GMO is just the shorthand in the templates. ArbCom specifically gave the remedy All pages relating to genetically modified organisms, commercially produced agricultural chemicals and the companies that produce them, broadly construed, are designated as a contentious topic. to make sure topics where pesticides (or GMOs) came up were covered.

Obviously when we're directly discussing pesticides on this page like with this section, that area of the article falls under the contentious topic designation (and 1RR). That's what the talk page notice explains too with Parts of this article relate to. . .. You don't really even need the broadly construed designation in that case, though if someone wants more guidance on how "broadly construed" works for the pesticide topic, there's general guidance here. It's when you move into areas not directly discussing pesticides on this page, that it's murkier with pesticides being considered one of the overall causes of insect declines and would be a case-by-case basis. KoA (talk) 17:39, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Proposal 3

@KoA: what do you think about this proposal? Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 17:08, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

The content is irrelevant - it's the fact that it is a primary source that is the issue. This is now the 4th time I have tried to explain this to you. SmartSE (talk) 19:12, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

The content is certainly relevant. Next, the essay you cited above is neither a policy nor guideline. Do you have any policy or guidelines that can assist in this? Seems the exclude argument above is that since it is a primary source it may be removed. Its not so simple as that, it is a question of WP:WEIGHT. Given the notability of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory that is making the claim (aka in this case publishing the study), normally due weight would be applied, also given that the claims are not novel (as you or KOA have admitted above). Your argument that zero due weight is allowed is not supported by policy, thus me continuing to work with you two editors to include the content in some form. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 20:07, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

You can't dismiss WP:SCIRS because it is an essay and policies and guidelines are too broad to specify everything. And yes, it most definitely is a question of WEIGHT and at present the views presented in the source are not accepted because the research has not been evaluated by the scientific community and is thus undue to include. SmartSE (talk) 23:37, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

We dont use essays as a matter of policy or guidelines. So to clarify, it is your position that the EBML views are not accepted and thus do not qualify for inclusion? Essentially you do not want weight given to this POV correct? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 23:50, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Essays like SCIRS that have wide community acceptance explain specific policy and guideline issues related to sources like this. Normally the purpose of linking them is to avoid having to repeat the same discussion or create long talk pages when dealing with misunderstandings like how scientific sources work. Even you have been citing limited selections of SCIRS here (though out of context of other parts of it), but regardless of that, dismissing what's in it now as just an essay entirely misses the point of the underlying content issues.

At the end of the day, a litany of WP:PAG issues have been brought up in regards to trying to use the source, and they have not been addressed by you. As SmartSE mentioned, the issues have been presented to you multiple times now, and editors are not obligated to keep restating themselves either. There's been plenty of guidance given to you beyond just the source being primary, and slightly changing the edit while repeating the same problems is not going to get traction. We're really at the point you have all the information you need to understand why this source doesn't fit here. KoA (talk) 03:54, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. It was my obligation to fully flesh this out prior to RFC, and it seems that it comes down do you two thinking it is undue as you feel it is a primary source that doesn't go along with the current article POV. Your have provided an essay SCIRS to attempt to justify that. If I have missed something, please let me know. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 01:42, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

RFC on EBML content relating to agrichemicals

Include or Exclude (diff) this text:

In October 2024, researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory tested the influence of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and plant growth inhibitors in the laboratory against to larvae of the fruit fly, caterpillars of painted lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui) and in larvae of mosquitoes (Anopheles stephensi). Results suggested that agrochemical exposure, even at sublethal levels, affects insect populations.

Thanks for your comments! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 15:28, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Polling

• No, it should not be included. It is a primary source as it presents the findings of a singular lab study on the impacts of pesticides on a small number of insect species. There are secondary sources which should be cited instead for reasons given in WP:SCIRS and by editors in the prior discussion. Jtbobwaysf's argument - that as WP:SCIRS is not policy the arguments given within it should be dismissed - is irrelevant as it wasn't being mentioned as policy, but as a means to better communicate an argument for not including the text and source. Additionally, the proposed text of "Results suggested that agrochemical exposure, even at sublethal levels, affects insect populations" would better give the three insects that the study actually looked at, instead of mentioning 'insect populations'. Additionally, imo, To ensure that folks weren't making up the claim that secondary sources on the topic exist, I had a quick look and found:
  • Neonicotinoid insecticides negatively affect performance measures of non-target terrestrial arthropods: a meta-analysis (2018)[1]
  • The Impact of Pesticides on Flower-Visiting Insects: A Review with Regard to European Risk Assessment (2019)[2]
  • Meta-analysis and review of pesticide non-target effects on phytoseiids, key biological control agents (2021)[3] — Preceding unsigned comment added by FropFrop (talk • contribs) 07:22, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

• Expand As noted above, there are other studies of this. I looked myself and soon found Current Insights into Sublethal Effects of Pesticides on Insects which is a literature review which found over 700 papers. The article doesn't currently seem to say much about this beyond general references to pollution. As there are lots of sources, we should expand the proposed para and cite several such studies. Andrew🐉(talk) 15:28, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

  That's not the question this RFC is asking and that is a source of dubious reliability per WP:MDPI. Some of their niche journals are okay, but the non-specific scope of that one gives me cause for concern. SmartSE (talk) 16:24, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

  Agreed on this not addressing the focus of the RfC (or the article subject). That paper doesn't mention the primary source in question here, and it's more about overall sublethal effects of pesticides on insects, not the actual population declines (two different though sometimes related subjects when we talk about sources that do directly document pesticides causing declines).

  That's the similar issue with the RfC question itself in that the source isn't about the subject of this article in addition to the primary source issues. KoA (talk) 16:11, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

  Not so. The review I cited makes it abundantly clear that sublethal effects are an aspect or approach to insect decline. For example, its introduction starts "Declining insect populations..." My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:31, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

  Again, that is not the question of this RfC and getting into non-sequitur discussion. No one I'm aware of here is disputing that pesticides are a factor in declines, especially coming from someone who's been adding actual sources on this subject. If you want to discuss potential content with the source you are bringing, it's best to open a separate talk page section, though it's still an issue as a MDPI source. I would caution though that simply doing a crtl+f for "decline" is not how relevancy is established (similar to how we don't do WP:GOOGLEHITS at AfDs).

  When you read the source for what it actually covers (like the actual RfC primary source that should be the focus here), that review uses declines as a justification for why discussing sublethal effects is important, but actual focus on declines in that paper is much more narrow in scope. This source not related to this RfC is more of a general insect toxicology review rather than population declines, and that's a discussion largely for a different article. For bits that are relevant here, that's largely already reflected in the article from other sources. KoA (talk) 17:24, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

  Our comments in the RfC are not so constrained. WT:RFC explains that "RFCs aren't votes. You can suggest a compromise or an option that others haven't considered...". The choice of sources is not constrained either. Here's another literature review of sublethal effects from a journal published by Elsevier. We are spoilt for choice. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:23, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

  It looks like you're confusing the subject of this article vs. what the papers you are bringing are discussing. Again, if you want to discuss general insect ecotoxicology, that is best left for a different more relevant page where such overviews would fit better. If you want to discuss new sources that actually focus on population declines related to pesticides (not brought up so far in these discussions), that's best brought up in a different talk page section at this point so it can be looked at. That wouldn't need an RfC at all either. KoA (talk) 03:22, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

• No. This is all already covered in the above talk conversation, but best to summarize it here briefly:

1. FropFrop already summarized the WP:PRIMARY issue above, and SmartSE covered it in the previous talk conversation, which is already a big hurdle.

2. Primary source issues aside, the sole reason this source has been brought here is because a WP:COI editor tried to insert it in the article. It hasn't been highlighted in secondary sources or otherwise been given any indication of WP:DUE relative to thousands of other similar bioassay studies.

3. The source is not about the subject of this article. The source is focused on laboratory bioassays done on insects to assess what concentrations of pesticides cause X amount of mortality in the lab. That's quite a few steps removed from actual ecological assessments of population decline and is similar to how we have to watch how editors use research articles in medical subjects when they confuse super preliminary laboratory studies in a petri dish with full blown clinical trials. The research does not look at actual insect population declines. If someone wanted to write content for general background on bioassays or insect toxicology in a separate article, there are plenty of much higher quality secondary sources to write that content on. If we want content relevant to this page though, we need sources that focus on actual population declines related to pesticides, not peripheral topics. Misunderstandings and confusion about this subject matter quickly gets into WP:SYNTH issues in previous discussions.

4. The proposed content also doubles down on this misunderstanding. Even with the previous scope issues aside, the laboratory study was not focused on natural populations you could make a claim that populations are decreasing. The paper's main hook was instead more of a methods paper on high-throughput bioassays for performing multiple bioassays on a model organism (fruit flies), a malaria vector (an invasive mosquito), and a crop pest (thistle caterpillar). It's not a paper focused on insect declines, and even if it was, the species it looked at aren't ones that would be considered indicators of a decline, rather ones that are either artificial populations or pests. It tangentially mentions this article's subject as a justification for why us entomologists would want improved bioassay methods, but that's about it and nothing new for content generation even if a higher quality source mentioned it the same way. KoA (talk) 19:51, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

• Note this has been discussed above on this talk page at Talk:Decline_in_insect_populations#EBML_content. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 15:28, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

References