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Have you ever wondered about the link between pesticides and biodiversity? Did you read Rachel Carson's groundbreaking work, Silent Spring (1962) and ponder what progress has been made on regulating pesticide application in the nearly five-decades since its publication? Who are the culprits in the pesticide game, and what is its relevance to the climate crisis?
In a new analysis of nearly 400 research studies about the effects of pesticides on non-target soil invertebrates, Investigators from Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth US and University of Maryland, College Park, reviewed 275 unique soil organisms and 284 different ingredients/mixtures to identify and extract data regarding organism mortality, abundance, biomass, behavior, reproduction, biochemical biomarkers, growth, richness and diversity and structural change ("endpoints"). The result is more than 2,800 test combinations, "measured as a change in a specific endpoint following exposure of a specific organism to a specific pesticide." 70.5% of tests showed negative effects from pesticide exposure. The study, "indicates that pesticides of all types pose a clear hazard to soil invertebrates...The prevalence of negative effects in [the] results underscores the need for soil organisms to be represented in any risk analysis of a pesticide that has the potential to contaminate soil, and for any significant risk to be mitigated in a way that will specifically reduce harm to soil organisms and to the many important ecosystem services they provide." Read the journal article here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2021.643847/full Read more about the study's findings and its implications in an article from Common Dreams: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/05/04/new-soil-study-shows-pesticides-destroying-very-foundations-web-life?cd-origin=rss&utm_term=AO&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_content=email&utm_source=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Email
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