![A l’UM la science [S04-ep05] : The decline of insects](https://i0.wp.com/www.umontpellier.fr/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/reportage-2-768x1024.jpeg?fit=%2C&ssl=1 "A l’UM la science [S04-ep05] : The decline of insects")
This week in At UM science, Laurence Gaume, researcher at the laboratory Amaptells us about the decline of insects. The report takes you to the spectrometry pod of the physical measurements laboratory with Guillaume Cazals. Finally we end with the 44th edition of the living room mushrooms and autumn plants. A show co-produced and broadcast on the radio Divergence every Wednesday at 6 p.m.
Last week the WWF published its latest Living Planet 2024 report. A clear observation: 73% of wild vertebrate populations have disappeared in 50 years. It’s a collapse. At this rate, leatherback turtles, forest elephants and orangutans will not see the end of this century. Two or three years ago on this same show we announced to you with Vincent Devictor that bird populations had fallen on average by 25% in 40 years. It is also a collapse.
Today we are going to talk to you about insects. Take a test, ask people around you if they think insect populations are declining. One in two people will tell you about the windshield of their car that was once stained with insects, which still says a lot about our relationship with these small animals. Rare are those who evoke the regret of the grasshoppers which exploded in showers of sparks at each step in the tall grass, or the ladybugs whose points we had fun counting, the woodlice which swarmed under each turned over stone, where the lemons, these butterflies which, it was said, announced spring.
In 2020, a study published in the very prestigious journal Science had however undermined the windshield theory. Good news, the collapse of insect populations was not that catastrophic. Except that…
Except that the database InsectChanges from which this study was carried out contains more than 500 errors likely to call into question these optimistic results. Highlighting these 500 errors is the painstaking work carried out by Laurence Gaume, researcher at the Amap laboratory, with Marion Desquilbet. A study published in Peer Community Journal on October 8, 2024.
In the second part of the broadcast, the report takes place in the physical measurement laboratory where Guillaume Cazals takes us to the mass spectrometry pod. He describes the operation of spectrometers which he compares to balances and which allow molecules to be weighed very precisely to better characterize them.
Finally our last minute guest is Françoise Fons, she tells us about a meeting that we love at the UM, it is the 44th edition of the Autumn Mushrooms and Plants Show which will be held this weekend at the Faculty of Pharmacy.
At UM science you have the program, let’s go!
