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Insect killing causes, consequences and insect repellent in your own garden
contents
- A world without insects?
- Decline for decades
- All insect groups affected
- Indicator bird dying
- Causes of insect deaths
- What are the consequences of insect killing??
- Demands of the nature conservation federation
- Illegal farming
- Legal basis
- Slurry
- reaping
- Field margins
- High land prices
- Fodder plants for butterflies
- The cornelian cherry
- What to do against the insect killing?
- Insect-friendly plants
- Diversity in the garden
- insects hotels
- How do you create diversity?
- Fall foliage and deadwood
- Hedge with underground
- Nesting aids for wild bees
- Stems, stones and stalks
- flowerpots
- Old piles
- Insect hotel does not have to be
- Dilapidated garden huts
- Baskets, boxes and firewood
- Leave in silence
A world without insects?
There would be no more apples, no pears, no plums, most fruits and vegetables would fail. The flowers are dying too. Animals that eat insects vanish as do herbivores. Smelly animal carcasses are lying around because no insects eat them anymore, as well as feces and putrid biowaste products. Josef Tumbrinck from NABU North Rhine-Westphalia says: "If we miss the flying insects, the entire food chain is endangered: Flowers and trees are no longer pollinated and swifts and swallows lack the food base."
If the drastic decline of many insect species is not stopped, serious consequences threaten. (Image: Top Photo Group / fotolia.com) Decline for decades
In Germany there are about 33,000 insect species. Of these, 7,800 are on the Red List of Threatened Species, many of which have already died. In addition, 40% of all insect species continue to decline in their stocks.
In the wild bees more than half of the species are endangered, of about 550 species were 233 in their stocks from, also nearly 30% of hoverflies, 35% of grasshoppers, 37% of ground beetles and water bugs as much as 87%.
In beetles stocks have fallen by 75% over the course of ten years, with half of the species suffering losses of more than 30%.
Insects disappear throughout Europe. Butterflies have declined by 11% across the continent in 25 years, and grassland moths even 19%.
All insect groups affected
The ecologist Josef Settle summarizes: "The decline does not seem to be restricted to certain groups of insects. It affects virtually all those directly feeding on plants, such as butterflies or leaf beetles, as well as those of these living predators, such as dragonflies, and presumably also parasites. "
Bees and bumblebees are particularly affected: "Honeybees and wild bees like bumblebees are also affected by the pollen intake. The pollinators are also touched. The bee mortality has been reported more often. Neonicotinoids also play a critical role. "
Indicator bird dying
Indirect evidence of insect populations is provided by the populations of certain bird species in that they are better studied than insects. Here are the findings clearly: The largest declines of the last 25 years are in bird species that are dependent on the diet of insects and spiders during the breeding season. In the last twelve years, their numbers are falling even more drastically.
Causes of insect deaths
The main reason for the decline of insects is agriculture, more precisely: All primary causes of insect killing are related to agriculture. These include monocultures, insects taking food and nesting opportunities, including pesticides that directly kill or damage insects, including the extreme use of fertilizers that alter the composition of plants. Insect killing, for its part, is an indicator of the destruction of microhabitats.
Pesticides in agriculture are one of the reasons for the decline in insects. (Image: Dusan Kostic / fotolia.com) Other causes include climate change, the sealing of land, building and the tearing apart of habitats for settlement and commercial construction such as industry.
The biologist Josef Settele says: "There are probably a whole bunch of reasons. First, the use of pesticides in agriculture is often mentioned. Other factors include monocultures in the agricultural sector, the loss of hedges and margins on the fields. But perhaps climate change is also playing in there. The dilemma is, there probably is not a reason. Climate change will certainly have a noticeable effect in the medium term, but it can only well explain local phenomena well in rare cases. "
What are the consequences of insect killing??
Insects are central to humus to pollinate plants and keep the soil fertile. In order for many plants to survive, insects are needed. These are also essential for birds, reptiles and mammals.
The NABU NRW writes: "In North Rhine-Westphalia, the stocks of bees, butterflies and hoverflies have declined by about 80 percent since the year 2000. While the causes of insect killing are controversial, its consequences are obvious: Several species of birds such as swallows and swifts no longer find prey and many domestic (useful) plants can no longer be pollinated; there is a risk of crop failure. "
Demands of the nature conservation federation
The NABU calls for a fundamental reform of agricultural policy in the EU and for the promotion of agriculture only with tax revenue if it is compatible with nature. For example, farmers who take measures to protect birds such as insects should be encouraged to avoid subsidizing large-scale pesticide use.
Since it is a redistribution of 60 billion euros, the NABU is clear that there will be inappropriate attacks against these plans.
Illegal farming
NABU says that many farmers illegally extend their arable land to the streets and thus occupy property of the community, district or country. The municipalities would often have no interest in taking care of it, moreover clarifying the legal claims would involve a complex survey of the roadsides. By expanding the fields, farmers are destroying the pathways that are important for insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals, whose microhabitat is the habitat of modern-day farming in the fields.
Flowering field borders are an important habitat for many species of insects. (Image: Countrypixel / fotolia.com) Legal basis
There has long been legal basis to counteract this depletion of the refuges for wildflowers and insects. Thus, according to road and road law of Schleswig-Holstein § 18 a "roads and roadsides and noise barriers are preserved and designed so that they can develop naturally. Their entertainment should be geared to the importance of being part of biotope network systems. The road users must tolerate all necessary measures to the extent that this does not expropriate. "
Slurry
The illegal appropriation by farmers is only one reason for the destruction of the roadsides with their daisies, flakes and cornflowers, Wegwarte or St. John's wort. Another reason is the extreme distribution of manure in the fields. As a result, ammonia gets into the air. Although this promotes blackberries and nettles, these dominant plants but ensure that the "weaker" wild perennials can not spread.
reaping
Another reason for the destruction of microhabitats is the mowing, which farmers and communities often do too often. Unlike private gardeners, municipalities and "professional" nature users such as farmers or anglers are not subject to the restrictions of nature conservation law.
The Bavarian biologist Josef Reichholf criticizes that nature-loving citizens are not allowed to take bird feather home or bring frog spawn into the garden pond, while at the same time local authorities are mowing meadows, clearing hedges and drying up wetlands that provide wildlife habitat.
Field margins
In an effective agricultural technique, which reduces the number of wild plants in the fields to 1% of the crops, field margin strips are of particular importance. Such seeded flower strips have the purpose to relieve the soil.
High land prices
However, the high land prices mean that farmers can fully utilize even poorer soil. They are suitable for corn cultivation, which has been experiencing a boom for years. Although the EU, the federal government and the federal states are promoting edge-line programs through subsidies from farmers, growing corn promises higher profits. Farmers are not legally obliged to create edge strips.
Depending on the soil structure, plants of the marginal strips, which provide food for insects, are, for example, tansy, plantain, roadweed, chicory, poppy, yarrow, adderhead, stinging nettle, mugwort or scratch thistle.
Field edge strips with plants such as e.g. the poppy is an important source of food for bees, bumblebees and Co. (Image: Christine Kuchem / fotolia.com) Fodder plants for butterflies
Fodder plants for butterflies are for example, Wundklee, Kronwicke, wild carrot, borage, Feldmannstreu, cypress wolf milk, meadow widow flower and musk mallow. Neozoans such as summer lilac, giant hogweed or Canadian goldenrod also offer butterflies rich nectar, but are unsuitable as food such as the caterpillars.
The cornelian cherry
The fruits of the cornelian cherry were used by our ancestors as an olive substitute. It is ideal for planting slopes and gaps. The wood has great value as a bumblebee, butterfly and bee pasture because it flowers early.
What to do against the insect killing?
Especially against insect killing, everyone can do something. The NABU writes "Farmers, for example, can plant wildflowers among their fields and increasingly use natural pesticides, while beekeepers can offer their colonies better health prophylaxis. (Interestingly, nicotine protects bees from parasites and infections.) Balcony and garden owners can help conserve insects by not using pesticides. Likewise through nesting aids such as insect hotels, however, this variant only makes sense if your own garden is exemplary in terms of biodiversity. "
Insect-friendly plants
On the private balcony or in your own garden, you can look out for insect-friendly plants. The biologist Jürgen Tautz from Würzburg puts it in a nutshell: "Throw the geraniums off the balcony! What looks nice is not always good for insects. Geraniums do not give pollen or nectar. "
Although filled plants show particularly abundant flowers, they contain no pollen because the nectaries are mutilated. Such varieties include certain roses, asters, chrysanthemums, dahlias, carnations, peonies or camellias.
Diversity in the garden
Insects love wild flower boxes, in which, for example, mugwort grows, which offers food for 150 kinds of insects. Even unsprayed apple trees are a paradise for small animals, while intensive orchards with sprayed apples provide no habitat for them.
They help a lot if you do without artificial fertilizers in the garden and on the balcony. You can use plant-based weed killers and fertilizers instead.
insects hotels
Insects are increasingly suffering from loss of nesting possibilities. Insect hotels offer you an alternative. They consist of wood, tree bark, reeds, cones and stones and shelter bumblebees, wild bees, ladybugs, lacewings or butterflies.
An insect hotel offers shelter and a protected nesting site. (Image: pit24 / fotolia.com) How do you create diversity?
Plant native perennials and flowering bushes, sow wildflowers. For wildflowers, a box is enough on the balcony.
Although insects can also use many originally foreign plants as feed source, evolution has brought them and regional plants very close to each other. So there are flowers that can only be pollinated by a single species of butterfly. Especially caterpillars are often specialized in a single plant. For example, the American scarlet horn feeds only two bird species in Germany, while the native hawthorn feeds 32.
Fall foliage and deadwood
Do not let fall leaves in certain places in the garden. It is a lifeline for insects and insect larvae. Deadwood provides habitat for various beetles, parasitic wasps, bumblebees, bees and ants. The animals living there usually do not cause damage to the trees and shrubs because they specialize in dead wood.
Hedge with underground
An ideal habitat for insects, small mammals, some amphibians and birds they create when they leave deadwood at one point in the garden, until blackberries overgrow it, unload fruit and hedge trimming and plant sloes like wild roses. Blind crawlers and robins, earth bumblebees and wild bees will thank them.
Nesting aids for wild bees
You can help wild bees with simple means. For example, they drill holes in oak, beech or other deciduous trees, which lead about 10 cm into the wood without going out on the other side. These tubes should be up to 8 mm thick. These slices hang in a sunny and dry place, for example, on a south-facing wall of houses.
Stems, stones and stalks
You can also bind reed stalks, elderberry twigs, or the stems of perennials such as hollyhocks, or put them in a can with an opening and hang them in a sheltered place.
Alternatively you can use hole bricks or stones, fill the holes with clay and drill small passages with a branch.
flowerpots
For bumblebees, fill large flower pots halfway with dry moss, close the opening with wire mesh and dig the pots so that the water hole protrudes a finger's breadth from the ground.
Old piles
Do you have an old stake lying around? Outstanding. This is the XXL version of the wooden disc. To the aisles that beetles have eaten into, drill extra tubes for bees and bumblebees.
A small deadwood pile in the garden enables optimal living conditions for insects (Image: emer / fotolia.com) Insect hotel does not have to be
A purchased or self-built insect hotel in your own garden or on the balcony is good and nice, but remember what this consists of and do not banish these "raw materials" from their environment.
If you leave a deadwood pile in the garden, add a layer of leaves such as a drywall, a pile of stones, a Reisigbeet, a "wild" compost heap makes available to a raised bed with hedges and fruit cut as a substrate, leaves old branches on the tree, and the stalk stalks will not cut until the next spring, which offers on many square meters what an insect hotel mimics as a micromodel.
Dilapidated garden huts
The "ideal" for an insect hideout would be a dilapidated garden hut with holes in the roof, clogged gutters, "messaheads" of old tools and accumulations of natural elements, with overturned rain barrels and broken wheelbarrows, wooden lounge chairs that rot, etc. As you enter but you also want to feel good about your garden, do not leave it that far.
But you can look out for insects around the cabin and around the cabin at their garden shed. If you do not like disorder, an "insect garden" can also be kept neat.
Baskets, boxes and firewood
For this you can, for example, store perennial cut in wicker baskets or wooden crates, stack firewood in a dry place, but with free access to the outside, decorate slates on the garden pond so that openings remain free through which insects fit.
If you do not want wildflowers to grow wild, you can also plant them in hanging baskets, flower boxes or special raised beds.
Leave in silence
It is difficult for many traditional gardeners, but more important than all insect hotels is to leave corners in the garden simply in peace. Because they are indigenous plants, many food plants of the insects propagate on their own, and hides are formed by themselves when the raspberry leaves on the garden pond wither and the leaves fall over them in the fall. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)