Insects are dying out across Germany, even in nature reserves. This was the result of the investigations of the research project “DINA” (diversity of insects in nature conservation areas) under the direction of the German Nature Conservation Union (Nabu), which were presented on Wednesday in Berlin.
In addition to Nabu, eight scientific institutions were involved in the project. The results show that a massive decline in insects in nature reserves, which was scientifically proven in 2017, is continuing, said project manager Gerlind Lehmann from Nabu. “I feared it was so, I hoped it wasn’t.”
In 2017, volunteer entomologists from the Krefeld Entomological Association demonstrated that the total mass of flying insects in parts of Germany decreased by more than 75 percent between 1989 and 2016. According to Lehmann, the Dina project shows that total insect weight, which is directly related to species richness, has not recovered in any way since then. Exact figures are to be published in the coming months.
No escape from pesticides
For the project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, flying insect populations were recorded between May 2019 and April 2023 at 21 different locations in Germany, all of which were within a nature reserve. So-called malaise traps were set up for this purpose. These are tent-like nets in which flying insects are guided into a collection container and killed. All sites were in open country and in close proximity to conventionally farmed farmland.
According to the results, a particularly serious threat to insect diversity is that nature reserves are often located in close proximity to fields on which insect-killing pesticides are applied. According to Lehmann, more than 25 percent of the nearly 9,000 nature reserves in Germany have fields measuring at least half a hectare. The result: residues of 47 different pesticides were found in the examined insects. A banned pesticide was even detected at more than half of the locations examined.
In order to protect biological diversity in nature conservation areas and stop the extinction of species, the project participants called, among other things, for the surroundings of conservation areas to be considered during planning.
Information on the research project DINA Krefeld study
