Robert Hunziker / Transcend Media & John Lieff, MD / Searching for the Mind – 2018-12-11 00:05:51
Insect Decimation Upstages Global Warming
Robert Hunziker / CounterPunch & Transcend Media
(April 2, 2018) — Everybody’s heard about global warming. It is one of the most advertised existential events of all time. Who isn’t aware? However, there’s a new kid on the block. An alarming loss of insects will likely take down humanity before global warming hits maximum velocity.
For the immediate future, the Paris Accord is riding the wrong horse, as global warming is a long-term project compared to the insect catastrophe happening right now! Where else is found 40% to 90% species devastation?
The worldwide loss of insects is simply staggering with some reports of 75% up to 90%, happening much faster than the paleoclimate record rate of the past five major extinction events. It is possible that some insect species may already be close to total extinction!
It’s established that species evolve and then go extinct over thousands and millions of years as part of nature’s course, but the current rate of devastation is simply “off the charts, and downright scary.”
Without any doubt, it is difficult to imagine how humanity survives without insects, which are dropping dead in bunches right before our eyes. For proof, how many insect splats do people clean off windshields nowadays? Not many . . . . How many fireflies do children chase at night? Not many . . . .
Several naturalists and environmental writers believe the massive loss of insects has everything to do with three generations of industrialized farming and the vast tide of poisons pouring over the landscape year-after-year, especially since the end of WWII. Ours is the first-ever pesticide-based agricultural society. Dreadfully, it’s an experiment that is going dead wrong . . . all of a sudden!
Insects are basic to thousands of food chains; for example, the disappearance of Britain’s farmland birds by over 50% in 40 years. Additionally, North America and Europe species of birds like larks, swallows, and swifts that feast on flying insects have plummeted.
But, these are only a few of many, many recorded examples of massive numbers of wildlife dropping dead right before our eyes.
Significantly, insects are the primary source for ecosystem creation and support. The world literally crumbles apart without mischievous burrowing, forming new soil, aerating soil, pollinating food crops, etc. Nutrition for humans happens because insects pollinate.
One of the world’s best and oldest entomological resources is Krefeld Entomological Society (est. 1905) tracking insect abundance at more than 100 nature reserves. They first noticed a significant drop off of insects in 2013 when the total mass of catch fell by 80%. Again, in 2014 the numbers were just as low. Subsequently, the society discovered huge declines in several observation sites throughout Western Europe.
For example, Krefeld data for hoverflies, a pollinator often mistaken for a bee, registered 17,291 hoverflies from 143 species trapped in a reserve in 1989. Whereas by 2014 at the same location, 2,737 individuals from 104 species, down 84%. (Source: Gretchen Vogel, “Where Have All The Insects Gone?” Science Magazine, May 10, 2017)
Down Under in Australia anecdotal evidence similarly shows an unusual falloff of insect populations. For example, Jack Hasenpusch, an entomologist and owner of the Australian Insect Farm collects swarms of wild insects but now says: “I’ve been wondering for the last few years why some of the insects have been dropping off . . . This year has really taken the cake with the lack of insects, it’s left me dumbfounded, I can’t figure out what’s going on.” (Source: Mark Rigby, “Insect Population Decline Leaves Australian Scientists Scratching For Solutions,” ABC Far North, Feb. 23, 2018)
Concerned, Mr. Hasenpusch talked to entomologists in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, New Caledonia, and Italy. All of them related similar experiences.
According to entomologist Dr. Cameron Webb / University of Sydney, researchers around the world widely acknowledge the problem of insect decline but are at a loss to explain the causes.
Obviously, something dreadful is suddenly happening throughout the entire biosphere. The insect catastrophe is a relatively new phenomenon that has caught society unaware, blindsided. Interestingly, 97% of the Animal Kingdom consists of invertebrates such as insects, crabs, lobsters, clams, octopuses, jellyfish, and worms, etc.
Scientists have been noticing the problem for some time now, but widespread public knowledge is simply not there. Jürgen Deckert, insect custodian at the Berlin Natural History Museum is worried that “there’s a risk we will only really take notice once it is too late.” (Source: Christian Schwagerl, ?What’s Causing the Sharp Decline in Insects, and Why It Matters,” YaleEnvironment360, July 6, 2012)
The Senckenberg Entomological Institute/Frankfurt recorded a 40% decline in butterfly and Burnet moth species over a period of decades.
A Stanford University global index developed by Rodlfo Dirzo showed a 45% decline for invertebrates over four decades. Of 3,623 terrestrial invertebrate species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, 42% are classified as threatened with extinction.
The Zoological Society of London in 2012 published a major survey concluding that many insect populations are in severe decline. And in both the US and Europe researchers have recorded 40% declines in bee populations because of colony collapse disorder and sharp losses of monarch butterflies.
“Of particular concern is the widespread use of pesticides and their impact on non-target species. Many conservationists view a special class of pesticides called neonicotinoids — used over many years in Europe until a partial ban in 2013 — as the prime suspect for insect losses . . . “There are many indications that what we see is the result of a widespread poisoning of our landscape,” says Leif Miller, director general of the German chapter of Bird Life International,” Ibid.
Widespread poisoning of ecosystems is the norm in modern day society. “Ours is a poisoned planet, . . . This explosion in chemical use and release has all happened so rapidly that most people are blissfully unaware of its true magnitude and extent, or of the dangers it now poses to us all as well as to future generations for centuries to come.” (Source: Julian Cribb, “Surviving the 21st Century,” Springer Nature, Switzerland, 2017, page 104)
“Most people are blissfully unaware” may be a blessing in disguise as the angst, dread, and uneasiness that knowledge of this horrendous crisis brings is the root cause of severe bouts of sleeplessness along with difficult spells of deep depression.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
The Remarkable Bee Brain
John Lieff, MD / Searching for the Mind
(November 12, 2012) — Bees use abstract thought and symbolic language.
Bees routinely solve the advanced mathematical problem of the travelling salesman.
Bees mix medications for their hive and know when a fungus is dangerous.
Bees distinguish landscapes scenes, types of flowers, shapes and patterns.
Bees forage for information.
Bees learn categories, sequences, combinations, and the changes of future rewards.
All of these are accomplished by INDIVIDUAL bees, not hives.
How can such a small insect be able to think abstractly? Yet, this is exactly what a new study showed. Using concepts “above/below” and “difference” it demonstrated that bees can handle two different abstract concepts at the same time and make decisions based on these in new situations.
How can bees visually distinguish landscape scenes, many types of flowers, many shapes and patterns with such a small visual brain?
But, that is what recent research shows.
Previous posts described the very complex symbolic language of the waggle dance, and bees’ remarkable ability to solve the advanced mathematical question of the shortest distance between many objects. Bees also distinguish dangerous fungi from harmless ones. They mix medicine called propolis and bring more when dangerous fungus infected their hive.
When harmless spores were placed in the hive, the bees removed the spores but did not spread propolis.
Bees, amazingly can remember route details up to six miles over several days.
How can we explain such remarkable cognitive capacities with a tiny brain?
The Bee’s Brain: Hardwired or Neuroplastic
Bees have approximately one million neurons in 0.5 mm; humans have 100 billion neurons. And yet bees can learn, and understand abstract concepts, and make complex decisions. Observing humans rapid neuroplastic responses to experience, scientists have assumed that learning and plasticity depend upon the complexity of human brain.
Most scientists have therefore assumed that advanced behavior in creatures with very small brains, such as the bee, must be “hard wired” rather than responsive and changeable.
While it is possible that some small-brained insects are hard wired, bees do not appear to be. Perhaps, this conclusion is based upon the much greater number of studies of the bees’ brain compared with other insects. It is possible that in the future other insects will be noted to have the neuronal changes of neuroplasticity.
While emphasis in the past has been on “hive” consciousness to explain some of the bees remarkable abilities, it is really not at all clear what hive or group intelligence is, or where it could reside.
Our current understanding of bees greatly benefited from early research by Karl von Frisch who won a Nobel prize for showing many facets of bees including seeing ultraviolet and polarized light, and communication with symbolic dances. Recent research on bees, shows neuroplasticity in individual neurons.
In fact, recent research convincingly demonstrates that individual bees are crucial for the functioning and decision making of the hive.
The bee has individual memories related to experiences both in the hive and outside. Individual bees are able to evaluate timing of events, spatial arrangements and communication from other bees in comparison to their own personal experience.
Insect Nervous Systems
All insects have a brain and a series of neuron ganglia in the chest and abdomen.
They have sensory nerves at two levels, that is, a sensory nerve going to a ganglia where there is a synapse then another neuron to the brain.
Insects also have two layers of neurons for movement, a descending pre-motor neurons, and motor neurons.
There are also interneurons in the brain.
The honeybee brain is highly structured in ordered groups of neurons with many of the central neurons individually identifiable. It has been shown that bees demonstrate plasticity in all the components of the olfactory learning and reward circuit.
The bee’s brain is large compared with other insects, (fruit flies being 50 times smaller with a tenth of the neurons). Bees have more elaborate visual systems and mushroom bodies, which perform integration of multiple senses. The mushroom bodies that integrate multiple senses are 20% of the brain volume with 200,000 neurons. (flies’ mushroom bodies consist of 2% of the brain volume with 2500 mainly smell neurons)
The
With advanced imaging it has been shown that one neuron can influence specific cognitive functions, mediating reward-based learning. This particular nerve VUMmx1 takes data from the antenna, the integrating mushroom body, and other lateral regions, learns about a new sucrose odor and an unpredicted reward.
This type of neuron functioning resembles specific human dopamine neurons and shows advanced neuronal communication. This research has proven that bees’ brains have multiple different places for memory.
Learning and memory
Despite attempts to consider bees in behaviorist terms, honeybee learning is much more complex than traditional classical and operant conditioning.
The life of the honeybee is short, and the hive’s life is very long. Therefore, individual bees cannot be programmed to know locations, qualities of flowers and hive sites.
Their observational learning is very advanced and beyond most other insects. Bees rapidly learn visual, smell, taste, and touch information in any foraging neighborhood.
Bees are able to generalize about types of sites beyond simple categories. Visual information is not filtered but is part of the general central function of the brain. The bee is able to abstract from all of the sensory information.
It has been shown that bees take into account social conditions, time of day, location, and the different sensory stimuli and appear to show integrated memory of all of these characteristics. Bees are able to count scenes and therefore can remember the way through mazes and through complex outdoor scenes. This property has led scientists to consider that bees can count. Bees have demonstrated short-term memory in mazes and long-term memory (several minutes) in rewards.
Bees have also demonstrated memory over days, and their entire lifespan (weeks in summer bees and months in winter bees). Interestingly, unlike other insects, honeybees use epigenetic methods for memory as mammals do. Both acetylation of histones, and methylation of DNA are used in learning and memory consolidation. Scientists are just now trying to device RNA interference techniques to study the bee genome.
Unfortunately, the techniques that have allowed close observation of how neuroplastic changes can occur in the fly have not been yet developed for the honeybee. Examples of this include the circuits of neurons that form lasting stronger synapses where learning is taking place.
Neuroplastic changes
(See post on How Neuroplasticity Works) have been observed for specific dendritic spine activity in the mushroom bodies during learning. The hundreds of thousands of mushroom body neurons synapse onto one hundred neurons, which then code the specific multi sensory learned stimulus combinations.
The mushroom body appears to act like a combination of the human hippocampus and the cortex changing sensory information into value based information. This advanced brain integration of the signals develops a memory over time, increasing ability to navigate in different situations as well as ongoing evaluation.
Aging in Bees
Sixty thousand workers are daughters of one queen. They seem to emerge without genetic predispositions, with very plastic abilities to adapt to different jobs. These adaptations often occur through epigenetic mechanisms of learning most often through smell.
Queen Bee
As bees age they have a cognitive decline and reduced ability to handle stress. Strangely, this aging is immediately reversed if the colony “swarms”, which is when the hive divides into two.
Another way bees become young again is when young nurse bees are removed. Specific proteins have been identified related to this sudden ability of old bees to act young. Is this a fountain of youth for mammals as well? Intense research is now beginning on this question.
Winter bees do not have aging when they live for months without foraging. It appears that the demands of foraging are a stimulus to aging. Epigenetic changes are also involved in aging processes.
Food And Information Foragers
Most bees forage for food. A smaller group of bees are selected to forage for information as scouts, searching for new food regions and new nest sites. The queen is able to manipulate the choice of bees for these different tasks of caring for the young, scouting and food foraging through use of pheromones.
The democratic waggle dancing process uses a symbolic language for choosing a new nest has been described in a previous post where inhibitory signals have been found, much like those that occur with interneurons in the human brain.
The basis of this symbolic language and complex decision-making is not clear. Communication for foraging occurs in the waggle language encoding distance, direction, and qualities of the available food or next site. The type of food is signaled by the odor on the dancing bee.
Distance is described in the speed of the rounds of the dance; direction of the outbound flight relative to the sun is related to the angle of the waggle to gravity.
Other bees carefully observe the dance and learn from it. The information is integrated into specialized spatial memory to allow for new shortcuts to high quality flower targets. Bees start foraging near the hive, and then use the information to find more distance flowers. This advanced language of spatial locations doesn’t exist in any other animal.
Before bees start foraging they first explore the region, examining the relation to the sun, spatial relations to landmarks, local conditions and the hive. Only then do they carry out extended trips for food. A young bee who has not previously experienced the specific new flower smell demonstrated in the waggle dance will leave early on and go to familiar sites looking for that new flower type.
If that search is exhausted they will return to the waggle dance and learn how to fly to the new locations. The bees are so capable in remembering locations that when they have exhausted their current location they remember short cuts to the new locations described in the waggle dance.
Bees are able to remember a map of multiple locations, whereby they can navigate on the waggle information without knowing specific landmarks or visual scenes. In mammals some of this type of information exists in place grids and head direction cells in the hippocampus.
How the bee can do this in their much smaller brain is not clear.
Conclusion
Bees demonstrate abstract thought, symbolic language, advanced visual perception, neuronal neuroplastic changes, decision-making, and planning. They learn through symbolic language and transfer these memories to specific spatial abilities including the ability to find the shortest distances between many different types of scenes and flowers. They can count, sequence, and combine concepts.
These capacities are in the individual bee, with a very small brain, one million neurons, versus humans 100 billion. This intelligence is in the individual bee not a mysterious “hive intelligence” (used to explain away their individual capacities) anymore than our intelligence is in the Internet or society.
With such advanced capacities in bees, as well as cognitive abilities in microbes, intelligence and mind in nature must be reconsidered.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
