Bad News for Mayflies

[MD_Gene]

https://apple.news/ABchiJ2SCR4Ks02UdHu00Lg

 

[rrt]

Maybe you could summarize this for some of us. To get to read the article, I would have had to subscribe to where it is posted. The last time I tried something like that, I got a fraudulent bill on my credit card statement that I had to fight to get removed.

Anyhow, I have noticed a loss of mayflies on various streams and even the disappearance of caddisses, including grannoms, from others.

Sad situations.

 

[timmyt2]

Better link:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/animals/2020/01/mayfly-insect-populations-in-decline

 

[jifigz]

Is this why I never catch any great hatches? I'm just teasing, obviously. But that isn't great news. More info is definitely needed and we shouldn't rush to a "doom and gloom" style mindset.

 

[MD_Gene]

I get your point. We've all been there. But this is Apple News and it's free (with ads).

 

[larkmark]

More bad news for the planet. Some on this forum will tell us that streams are improving but from what I see overall things are going downhill. Mayflies, butterflies, birds, bees....long list. We have leaders who value the almighty dollar over people and the earth.
Spring Creek once had wonderful hatches. They are dwindling. And if you go back in time many of the mayfly hatches there were wiped out and never returned. Restoration is nice and it is all we have in many cases but sometimes things are gone forever.

 

[blueheron]

Agricultural runoff strikes again. The article stated an 84% decrease in Hexagenia larvae in the Lake Erie basin in a 4 year period, that’s epically astounding. We all want food and fuel at the lowest possible price but at what cost.

 

[Dave_W]

Could someone able to read this article please provide a short version of this story.

What specifically are we talking about here?

 

[sgrim]

Dave_W wrote:
Could someone able to read this article please provide a short version of this story.

What specifically are we talking about here?

See this: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/01/mayfly-insect-populations-in-decline/

This is the most significant passage:

"In the paper, Stepanian and colleagues used radar to estimate mayfly populations, validating the method by comparing it with numbers of mayfly nymphs found in the sediment at the bottoms of rivers and lakes.

The study revealed that between 2015 to 2019, populations of burrowing mayflies in the genus Hexagenia declined by an incredible 84 percent in western Lake Erie. In the nearby northern Mississippi River Basin, from 2012 to 2019, they declined by 52 percent.

These dropping populations are significant because the insects are an important link in the food chain, serving as prey for a variety of predators. They also transfer tons of nutrients from the water to the land, a valuable ecological service."

 

[DaveKile]

Dave_W wrote:
Could someone able to read this article please provide a short version of this story.

What specifically are we talking about here?

Dave try this link from timmytc2 - Article


I still subscribe to National Geo, but it has fallen into the trap that fuels the age of new media. Their search for relevance in a very competitive space is evident to me with the overdone gloom and doom reporting. The sick polar bear is just and example and how they had to retract. They need clicks so they will write stuff that gets attention like we are doing now.

They don't write articles like: GOOD NEWS - Wild Fires Have Decreased Over 80% Since 1924, which it has. They are a business and have to attract readers.

The overall health of our waterways and ecosystems in the US has improved greatly in the last 100 years. Could it be better, of course, but there haven't been many fires on the Cuyahoga River lately. We will always have work to do, but think about how much better the western and central streams are in PA. We have made significant gains over long period to help those waterways. The same is true with wildlife in the state.

This has all been a result of policy changes, laws, and hard work by non-profits, businesses, the state and people who care. It will continue to be something we work on today and going forward. Most importantly we need to share with our kids how bad it was, how much we have accomplished and where we need to go.

I'm not dismissing the truth of mayfly hatches going down, but I'm not going to buy into every article that claims everything is at a crisis point. If we give the earth a health chance to be successful, it will work out.

Last week I saw three mature eagles flying around my neighborhood. What a remarkable comeback that has been over the last 60+ years.

 

[blueheron]

All true Dave, people spin data to whatever use they see fit. That and the need for shock value to entice users to click on their articles for ad revenue has made it difficult to separate a real issue from an anomaly.

 

[sarce]

Still can't read the NatGeo link.

With the disclaimer that I haven't read the full article, based on quoted passage in post 9, I'm skeptical that radar data could be used to study mayflies...what happens when an evening storm rolls in? No way to separate bugs from rain on the radar. I don't dispute that ag runoff is awful for macroinvertebrates, and will say that as a whole the country is not doing enough to reduce ag runoff...but I question the study's methods.

 

[fishbaithohaha]

Had someone not sounded the alarms, eagles would have gone from endangered to extinct.

 

[GeneBeam]

I was working on a project, in 2015, during this study, about 45 miles east of Toledo Ohio and I was staying at Port Clinton. I couldn’t tell if the Mayfly hatch was more or less than prior years, as I was only there for 2 years, but if, as the study is stating, that the Mayfly hatch is down, then I would had hated to be there during the pike years. We had Mayflies everywhere and when I went to work there were a pile of dead Mayflies about 4 to 6 inches deep, 7 to 8 feet around just outside the main gate just under the parking lot lights. They had a crew that did nothing but clean up the Mayflies. Also, the people at the hotel keep telling us to not leave our doors open any longer than necessary during the Mayfly hatch, because they got into everything. Just my observations during my time there.

 

[tomgamber]

Or like saying, " Wild Fires Have Decreased Over 80% Since 1924, which it has. They are a business and have to attract readers."

Because the amount of forest land has decreased as well.

Take your accusations of spin with the same grain of salt.

I would also add that "spin" and hyperbole, while neither is good, are not the same thing.

 

[DaveKile]

Sorry closer to starting in 1930 burn acreage US forest fires have decreased about 80%.

I like to look at the longer and larger picture. Things are getting better.

 

[jifigz]

tomgamber wrote:
Or like saying, " Wild Fires Have Decreased Over 80% Since 1924, which it has. They are a business and have to attract readers."

Because the amount of forest land has decreased as well.

Take your accusations of spin with the same grain of salt.

I would also add that "spin" and hyperbole, while neither is good, are not the same thing.

Well, that's actually not true. Forest lands HAVE NOT decreased in the last 80 years.

 

[JackM]

Hatches on Lake Erie have very little effect on, or similitude to, hatches on Penn's Creek.

 

[ryansheehan]

tomgamber wrote:
Or like saying, " Wild Fires Have Decreased Over 80% Since 1924, which it has. They are a business and have to attract readers."

Because the amount of forest land has decreased as well.

Take your accusations of spin with the same grain of salt.

I would also add that "spin" and hyperbole, while neither is good, are not the same thing.

According the department of agriculture.

 

[riverwhy]

Maybe not decreased but more and more fragmented in many areas. And I would guess more managed than in the past. Cutting, spraying, manipulation of species, for example. I also wonder how they calculated forest land then compared to now. Would 1,000 Acres of clear cut mountain land in Potter in 1890 no longer be considered forested when that was obviously still its use and what it would revert to? Compared to 1,000 acres of heavy cut land today which I would guess would still be considered "forest land"?

If you look at the big picture of population growth, rapid development and increased consumption, in some parts of the world there is much reason to be gloomy.
But, I want some of the drugs these optimists are taking.