This Proceedings of the National Academy abstract is a succinct overview of
the subject:


*Insect decline in the Anthropocene: Death by a thousand cuts*

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/2/e2023989118

*Nature is under siege. In the last 10,000 y the human population has grown
from 1 million to 7.8 billion. Much of Earth’s arable lands are already in
agriculture (1 <https://www.pnas.org/content/118/2/e2023989118#ref-1>),
millions of acres of tropical forest are cleared each year (2
<https://www.pnas.org/content/118/2/e2023989118#ref-2>, 3
<https://www.pnas.org/content/118/2/e2023989118#ref-3>), atmospheric
CO2 levels are at their highest concentrations in more than 3 million y (4
<https://www.pnas.org/content/118/2/e2023989118#ref-4>), and climates are
erratically and steadily changing from pole to pole, triggering
unprecedented droughts, fires, and floods across continents. Indeed, most
biologists agree that the world has entered its sixth mass extinction
event, the first since the end of the Cretaceous Period 66 million y ago,
when more than 80% of all species, including the nonavian dinosaurs,
perished.  *

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