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this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
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Roundup is an herbicide, fyi. But there are plenty insecticides being widely used, even moreso than Roundup in urban and suburban settings. Whenever mosquitoes start to come out, someone near me gets a mosquito yard treatment, and you can instantly see the insect biodiversity in my garden drop.
I work with a biologist who is studying this question because of the decline in pollinators and their results from studying this seem to show that it's very likely that glyphosate is contributing to the problem by limiting food sources and making pollinators more avoidant of spray areas. There's also some evidence that it may have an impact on insect immune systems.
I had a pest control company come out to plant some rat traps in the backyard and I specifically told them not to spray for spiders. They did anyways and fucking killed my bees! I was furious, and heartbroken, and there was nothing I could do to undo the damage.
I am no plantologist, but even an herbicide can affect insects, no?
Feeding or interacting with a freshly sprayed plant and becoming tainted, or perhaps even by the reduction/elimination of the plant sprayed?
It absolutely harms insects in some ways that increase their mortality, but pesticides straight up murder them and are used just as often if not more
No argument about pesticides, but herbicides are what I am concerned with currently as there seems to be some confusion with their effect on insects. In my ten-minute internet education on the topic, it seems there is a decided effect with herbicides and insects.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6502833/
So, both direct and indirect impacts (melanin and their immune systems) as well as greatly reducing the plant sources they may be accustomed to frequenting is a triple-whammy. I do hate mosquitoes, but I feel bad for all the other bugs and what this will do to the world.
People aren't spraying herbicides for mosquitoes though, they're spraying pesticides that also kill bees, grasshoppers, and beetles. I'm not defending herbicide use, but as far as insect populations are concerned, pesticides are a serious direct threat
I was not implying that people were spraying herbicides for mosquitoes, but merely mentioned them as a sympathetic exception.
There's nothing credible to suggest glyphosate affects anything except plants. There are some pretty bad herbicides out there, but Roundup ain't one of them.
Downvote away.
I am here to learn (and possibly be entertained), not downvote everything I might not agree with.
I do find it a heady statement to say glyphosates affect nothing but plants, so as my curiosity was piqued in plantology I searched and did find this webpage near the top of my results (using Startpage):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8115815/
I would not call this a non-credible source so it would seem there are indeed some deleterious affects with insects.
So I can't see in that study where they correlate actual field concentrations to what they're applying to the test insects. From what I can tell, they're using very high concentrations and observing reduced melanization. Interestingly, in lower concentrations, there's a tendency for the mosquitos to develop a better response to the infection, presumably because the survivors are less susceptible.
What you normally see in these studies is that they have to directly apply concentrations much, much higher than found in the field to develop a response. The runoff levels are tested to be in the nM range, but they're applying 10-50 mM to each insect directly injected. Even if they're in the field and encountering mM concentrations as applied, contact with an insect probably isn't going to transfer much to the bloodstream as there's no direct transfer pathway for animals.
wouldn't the primary technicality here be exposure time? Rather than exposure levels. Ultimately depends on the lifespan of the insect itself. But this is a pretty significant factor to why things like leaded gas got banned.
Presumably. Also would be determining a pathway that gets those low concentrations through to the organism in levels high enough to induce the effects that they've determined with artificial exposures. But that's not even hinted at in the study, and that's usually where these studies fail.
I can introduce high levels of NaCl to a cell and kill it, but without finding a way that dunking someone in seawater kills them via mere exposure, saying the ocean is hazardous is a bit of a stretch.
uhm, drowning, hypothermia, being stranded in the middle of it. I can think of a few.
When Monsanto and Bayer are paying out billions in compensation to people with glyphosate-related cancers, but still refusing to admit liability so they can keep it on the market, you've got to at least be a little suspicious about their safety claims. It's still cheaper for them to pay people off than stop selling it, I guess?
A jury trial for damages is about as far away from a scientific determination as one could get. People have gotten settlements for cancers "caused" by LTE power meters.
I have no clue why people trot out this sort of thing as some sort of evidence.
IDK probably because if you were a multi billion dollar company that has already proved the science behind it's safety, apparently. It would seem rather trivial to prove it's effectiveness in court. No?
Settling doesn't mean you're guilty, but it doesn't mean you're innocent either. At best it's a PR move.
If you do a cursory search you'll find lots of studies describing the negative impacts of glyphosate to insect health, such as to gut biota and immune function, and straight up increased mortality
mmmmm glyphosate, sounds yummy. Cant wait to eat it.
Don't worry, you already are :)
i meant drinking it, straight up, i'm already filled with micro plastics, i'm sure my tissue is part PFAS as well.