The world is teetering on the edge of a man-made apocalypse, experts have warned - with plunging insect numbers in Europe offering a chilling warning.
A report this year found that 40% of insect species are declining, with a third endangered, according to a global scientific review of research.
Researchers in Europe became aware of how serious the decline in insect numbers was in 2011 - and say that since then it has ‘got worse’.
Martin Sorg of the Amateur Entomology Society of Krefeld have gathered 80 million insects in traps, and their work has been key to identifying today’s rapid decline.
The total mass of insects on our planet is droppping by 2.5% a year - meaning that insects could be wiped out altogether within a century.
The researchers write, ‘The trends confirm that the sixth major extinction event is profoundly impacting life forms on our planet.
‘Unless we change our ways of producing food, insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades. »
