Melanie Gibbs about insect biodiversity & species pesticide sensitivity
Melanie Gibbs (UKCEH)
“Insect biodiversity is in decline worldwide [...] because we have incomplete knowledge of routes of exposure, and a poor understanding of how different pesticides may be causing long-term harm.”
What traits of agroecosystem species determine their pesticide sensitivity?
“A species sensitivity to pesticides will depend on a number of interacting factors including, 1) how, where and when they live in farmland habitats; this will determine their likelihood of exposure, and the potential routes by which they are likely to be exposed to pesticides and, 2) their evolutionary history; both genetic and phenotypic traits are likely to affect the extent by which the organism incurs physiological damage that leads to reduced growth, reproduction or survival.”
What are your role-specific tasks within the project?
“I am an ecologist in a team of researchers from the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology who are working with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds at Hope Farm (SYBERAC Case study 1A). My specific task within SYBERAC is to assess the effectiveness of different types of field margin habitats in protecting moths, butterflies, and spiders from the impacts of pesticide spray drift.”
What is the key takeaway SYBERAC offers the public?
“Insect biodiversity is in decline worldwide. The degree by which chemicals, like pesticides, are interacting with other drivers and contributing to this decline is largely unknown. This is because we have incomplete knowledge of routes of exposure, and a poor understanding of how different pesticides (and their mixtures) may be causing long-term harm to species living in farmland habitats.”
What inspired your focus on human impacts on insects?
“My first post-doctoral research position was in the laboratory of Prof. Hans van Dyck (Université Catholique de Louvain) where I had the opportunity to integrate my life history research with knowledge of landscape ecology. This post-doc inspired me to focus on trying to understand how environmental changes in fragmented agricultural landscapes interact with pesticide use to impact insect growth, reproduction, and survival within and across generations.”
