insects

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    How to Welcome Helpful Insects to Your Garden

    How to Welcome Helpful Insects to Your Garden

    By Brian Lovett As winter phases into spring across the U.S., gardeners are laying in supplies and making plans. Meanwhile, as the weather warms, common garden insects such as bees, beetles and butterflies will emerge from underground burrows or nests within or on plants. Most gardeners know how beneficial insects can be for their plots. […]

    Billions of Cicadas May Soon Be Coming to Trees Near You

    Billions of Cicadas May Soon Be Coming to Trees Near You

    By John Cooley and Chris Simon A big event in the insect world is approaching. Starting sometime in April or May, depending on latitude, one of the largest broods of 17-year cicadas will emerge from underground in a dozen states, from New York west to Illinois and south into northern Georgia. This group is known […]

    New Pesticides Will Modify Insect Genes: What Could Go Wrong?

    New Pesticides Will Modify Insect Genes: What Could Go Wrong?

    By Kendra Klein Biden’s election has boosted hopes that scientific integrity will be restored in the federal government. To make good on that promise, the administration will need to take action to safeguard against the risks of an entirely new type of pesticide, one developed by genetic engineers rather than chemists. These pesticides will broadcast […]

    Western Butterflies Disappearing Due to Warmer Fall Seasons

    Western Butterflies Disappearing Due to Warmer Fall Seasons

    Butterflies across the U.S. West are disappearing, and now researchers say the climate crisis is largely to blame. A new study published in Science on Thursday looked at three different data sets that cover the last 40 years of butterfly populations across more than 70 locations in the Western U.S. They found that butterfly populations […]

    Is Your Avocado Toast and Almond Milk Harming Bees? Maybe

    Is Your Avocado Toast and Almond Milk Harming Bees? Maybe

    At first glance, you wouldn’t think avocados and almonds could harm bees; but a closer look at how these popular crops are produced reveals their potentially detrimental effect on pollinators. Turns out, bee labor is required to produce most avocados and almonds in the U.S. Honeybees pollinate most fruits and vegetables in the country, The […]

    Tiny Cacao Flowers and Fickle Midges Are Part of a Pollination Puzzle That Limits Chocolate Production

    Tiny Cacao Flowers and Fickle Midges Are Part of a Pollination Puzzle That Limits Chocolate Production

    By DeWayne Shoemaker It’s almost impossible to imagine a world without chocolate. Yet cacao trees, which are the source of chocolate, are vulnerable. I am a passionate chocolate lover and an entomologist who studies cacao pollination. The crop’s sustainability currently appears to depend on several species of tiny fly pollinators, who are frankly struggling to […]

    Traffic Sounds Make It Harder for Birds to Think, Scientists Find

    Traffic Sounds Make It Harder for Birds to Think, Scientists Find

    If you’ve ever had a hard time thinking when a noisy truck rattles by, you’re not alone. A study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B Wednesday found that traffic noises can impair the ability of songbirds to learn. In some cases, birds took twice as long to figure out new skills when […]

    New Clues Help Monarch Butterfly Conservation Efforts

    New Clues Help Monarch Butterfly Conservation Efforts

    By Tara Lohan Fall used to be the time when millions of monarch butterflies in North America would journey upwards of 2,000 miles to warmer winter habitat. But these days the iconic butterfly’s numbers are dwindling. The western migratory population is down 97% since the 1980s — a survey this month found fewer than 2,000 […]