Heading Towards Insect Apocalypse!!!

Air pollution has taken a toll on human lives and has claimed approximately 1 million of lives in 2015. It is not only taking a toll on human lives but insects are being affected at high rates so much that sometimes it feels that if such a condition keeps persisting the whole insect breed may see a calamitic effect.

The whole world is seeing such differences where insects are dying at a fast pace and their population has diminished by a quarter across the globe. If we take the example of Kansas, USA, the population of grasshoppers has decreased by 30%, in Germany, the population of insects has gone down by 75% and if we take the example of India, Orissa only, the population of bees saw a dip of 80%.

In humans, air pollutants like PM10 have the capacity to choke lungs and have severe effects on our respiratory, cardiovascular and neurological problems. In bees the effect of these pollutants is much more deadly than we think; it can kill about 80% of them. Earlier chemicals in pesticides were seen as the sole culprits. After quite a research it is proved that toxic air pollutants can lead them in being extinct.

In South Asia. Giant Asian Honey bees are the major pollinator and if these vanish then domestic production of fruits, vegetables, grains etc will be hampered at the highest rate. These bees are fond of yellow-flowering trumpet (Tecoma Stans) bushes from where the sample of bees were collected by researchers for the study. After researching for four years in Bangalore, the scientists saw that their body parts like hind legs, antennae and wings were covered with particulate matters, making it worse, there was residue of arsenic, lead, tungsten and aluminium. If the sites from where samples were taken had high particulate matter then the amount which was deposited on bees were also more. The blood cells count was less, heart rate was increased, genes which are responsible for managing stress, immunity, homeostasis and metabolism were also very high compared to bees collected from villages.

If the condition of air pollution will not be checked then the time is not far when we won’t be able to get adequate amounts of fruits, vegetables etc as pollination is one of the most important step of flowering plants. If right pollination doesn’t take place then that flower will not be able to bear fruit. There is an estimate that in absence of insect pollinators 53% of mangoes will vanish from our earth.

My Views: It has become more mandatory now that we start taking care of our earth and try to stop air pollution by applying different rules and regulations. As without insects, air and plants the human race won’t be able to survive a day.