Tomorrow Today
Butterfly Alarm – Climate Change and the Lives of Insects
Butterflies are beautiful and bees make honey. But that is not all. By pollinating flowers, these insects are doing work of immense economic value. Experts put its worth at about 60 billion euros worldwide every year. Many fruits and vegetables could not exist without these busy pollinators, and if butterflies and bees were to vanish, an estimated one third of all food would vanish with them.
Ecologists at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Halle are trying to find out what impact climate change is having on the lives of the butterflies and the bees. In a long-term Germany-wide project, they are collecting data in an attempt to learn which environmental conditions benefit the insects and which will drive them away. The information is used to make predictions about the effects of increasing climate warming. Their results show that many species of bees and butterflies will vanish if they are not able to adapt to the changing conditions.
Share this article
