Nope. If you read the study, you will see that data was collected in 1976 and '77, and then much later, in 2011, '12, and '13. Pretty far into the study, they actually do summarize the effects of hurricanes on frogs found by a previous study: So although the frog population did take a hit from Hugo (1989), it bounced back due to an influx from nearby habitats. Especially for winged insects, the population of insects is likely to behave quite similarly. Regardless, these fluctuations are superimposed on top of a gradual decay in population for both frogs and insects. No, they use statistics. If you have several sampling points scattered throughout the jungle and use a methodology identical to what you used back in the 1970's, you're going to get a good idea of general trends. As is standard practice, the scientists included their error bars in Figure 2 (see above link again). The downward trend is far inside any experimental uncertainty. ... It is all one giant money grab. First of all, "pollute" is too broad of a term. This is about CO2 emission levels. And the data shows that the U.S. has indeed been reducing its emissions. Now, I concede that it's damn near impossible to definitively prove that imposing additional regulations (that is what you mean by higher taxes, right?) is what's responsible for the recent reduction in annual CO2 emissions. But that's still something I'd assert as almost certainly true. The free market is even trying to convince you that climate change is forreal. And if you know how incredibly asshole-ish most scientists are, you'd realize that the climate change hypothesis would have been delightfully torn apart by peer review several decades ago, but here we are. Money's nice, just not as nice as a stable global ecosystem.Sounds like hurricanes and floods did this.
The temporal pattern of E. coqui abundances in Woolbright’s (29, 30) El Verde study area (SI Appendix, Fig. S3B) departs from the monotonic, negative trends found in the other E. coqui populations, and required a segmented regression consisting of three phases. In the first phase, E. coqui numbers had a significant negative trend followed by a rapid increase during phase 2 from 6 to 57 individuals between January and October 1990, most likely due to immigration from surrounding areas following Hurricane Hugo. In phase 3, the population resumed a steady decline at about the same rate as phase 1, until the census ended 6 y later. The rapid return to the preperturbation rate of decline suggests the ongoing influence of climate change on birth and death rates.
How can they say 98%? Did they inspect 100% of the rainforest?
Higher taxes and we still pollute the same amount or more than last year.
One of the things that we should pay attention to is that even though insects in temperate climates tend to be a bit more resilient than in tropical climates, their populations can be severely damaged from stressors such as reduction in habitat, changes in temperatures, competing against new species of insects, animals, and diseases that spread due to climate change, pesticides, and many other factors. This study is a big red alarm, because if populations can drop so drastically in such a short period of time, we really need to be more vigilant in other environments, starting yesterday.
Thank you for taking the time to dissect and respond to my nonintellectual post. I was originally going to debate your response but I am in no way knowledgeable about insect populations in Puerto Rico (I've been there once while I was a teenager many many years ago). I have my opinions and selected "facts" to support those opinions as everyone does. My opinions are to one extreme (skepticism/greed) others might be to the other extreme faith (In the human, in the science, in the observations, in the "most favored opinion", etc).