- Canada to further cut international student, foreign worker permits
- YouTube launches new TV-focused tools for creators
- White Sox heading for worst season in MLB history
- China the top challenge in US history: senior diplomat
- Hong Kong democracy tycoon's son warns time running out
- New migraine drugs no better than cheap painkillers: big study
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs again denied bail in sex trafficking case
- Brewers clinch division title as MLB playoff race heats up
- Man City blunted by 'giant' Inter in Champions League stalemate
- US stocks dip despite larger Fed interest rate cut
- Man City held by Inter as PSG pinch win in Champions League
- All Blacks recall Beauden Barrett for Australia Test
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 20, wound 450
- Spurs late show saves Postecoglou blushes at Coventry
- PSG snatch late goal to beat Champions League debutants Girona
- Gittens' late double gives Dortmund Champions League win at Brugge
- Man City blunted by Inter in Champions League stalemate
- Hidden talent: French Olympic star Marchand opts for disguise
- MrBeast named in California lawsuit over 'Beast Games' show
- Gauff splits with Gilbert as coach after 14-month run
- Hundreds of thousands at risk in Sudan's El-Fasher: UN
- Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to new sex crime charge
- Venezuelan opposition candidate says letter conceding election was coerced
- Ukraine official claims Russian advance in Kursk has been 'stopped'
- X update allows app to bypass Brazil ban: internet providers
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 14, wound 450
- US Fed makes aggressive rate cut, weeks before election
- Arsenal's Odegaard faces lengthy injury absence
- India coal expansion risks massive methane growth: report
- China the top challenge in US history, top diplomat says
- US Fed makes larger half-point cut in first reduction since 2020
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr appoint former AC Milan boss Pioli
- Ainslie 'relieved' as British book place in Louis Vuitton Cup final
- Struggling Roma replace sacked icon De Rossi with Ivan Juric
- Women's NBA will add 15th team in Portland in 2026
- Brazil fires need harsher punishment: environmental police boss
- Boeing to start large temporary furloughs amid Seattle strike
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill nine, wound 300
- 'Emergency' declared over falling UK butterfly numbers
- McIlroy outlines threats to golf peace deal
- Stock markets, dollar slip before US rate decision
- Russian advance in Kursk 'stopped': Ukraine official to AFP
- UN members demand end to 'unlawful' Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories
- Snapchat pushes 'safer' platform image, but not everyone agrees
- Three dead, 100 wounded in new wave of Lebanon device explosions
- So where does the oceans' plastic waste come from?
- Allied war heroes buried in Netherlands... 80 years on
- Marsh coy over Australia's choice to open alongside Head
- New London sculpture pays tribute to trans community
- Lebanon doctors tell of horror after pager blasts
RBGPF | 5.79% | 60.5 | $ | |
GSK | -0.31% | 42.43 | $ | |
CMSC | 0.02% | 25.055 | $ | |
VOD | 0.49% | 10.23 | $ | |
NGG | -0.46% | 70.05 | $ | |
SCS | 0.71% | 14.11 | $ | |
BTI | -0.34% | 37.88 | $ | |
AZN | 0.06% | 78.58 | $ | |
RYCEF | 1.37% | 6.55 | $ | |
RIO | -0.02% | 62.91 | $ | |
RELX | -0.82% | 47.37 | $ | |
BCC | 1.33% | 137.06 | $ | |
BCE | 3.09% | 35.61 | $ | |
JRI | 0.45% | 13.44 | $ | |
BP | -0.37% | 32.43 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.12% | 24.98 | $ |
US bat decline triggered pesticide surge and over 1,000 infant deaths: study
A collapse in North America's bat population led to a surge in pesticide use by farmers as an alternative way to protect their crops -- in turn triggering a rise in infant mortalities, a study revealed Thursday.
The paper, published in Science, provides evidence supporting predictions that global biodiversity decline will have severe consequences for humans.
"Ecologists have been warning us that we're losing species left and right, and that extinction rates are orders of magnitude higher than what they think they should be, and that that will potentially have catastrophic impacts on humanity," author Eyal Frank, of the University of Chicago, told AFP.
"However, there was not a whole lot of empirical validation to those predictions because it is very hard to go and manipulate an ecosystem at a very large spatial scale."
- Bats are pest control -
For his work, Frank took advantage of a "natural experiment" -- the sudden emergence of a deadly bat disease -- to quantify the benefits that bug-eating bats provide in pest control.
White-nose syndrome (WNS), caused by an invasive fungus, began spreading across the United States from New York in 2006 -- killing bats by waking them during hibernation, when they lack insects to feed on and can't stay warm.
The loss of millions of bats shocked the ecosystem.
Frank tracked the spread of WNS in the eastern US and compared insecticide use in affected counties versus unaffected ones.
He found a staggering 31 percent increase in pesticide use where bat populations had declined.
Frank examined whether increased pesticide use correlated with higher infant mortality rates, a standard measure for studying the health impacts of environmental pollution.
With more pesticides, the infant mortality rate rose by nearly eight percent, translating to 1,334 additional infant deaths -- with contaminated water and air likely serving as pathways for the chemicals to enter humans.
Frank emphasized that the staggered spread of the wildlife disease supports the argument that the bat die-off caused the spike in infant mortality, rather than it being a coincidence.
Any other explanation would have to align with the same expansion path and timing.
- Cascading impacts -
"We need better data on the presence of pesticides in the environment," Frank said, adding that his findings also underscore the need to protect bats.
Vaccines are being developed against WNS, but bats are also threatened by habitat loss, climate change and wind farms.
Frank's work adds to the body of evidence showing the cascading impacts of wildlife loss on ecosystems.
A recent study found that reintroducing wolves in Wisconsin reduced vehicle collisions with deer as wolves establish their patrols along highways.
In Central America, declines in amphibians and snakes have led to spikes in human malaria cases.
"Stemming the biodiversity crisis is crucial to maintaining the many benefits that ecosystems provide for which technological substitutes cannot readily, or perhaps, ever replace," scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara and University of British Columbia wrote in a commentary.
"Studies like that of Frank are important for understanding the benefits of allocating scarce resources for biodiversity conservation."
K.Brown--BTB