Nearly half of all insect species worldwide are in rapid decline and a third could disappear altogether, according to a study warning of dire consequences for crop pollination and natural food chains.

"Unless we change our way of producing food, insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades," concluded the peer-reviewed study, which is set for publication in April.

The recent decline in bugs that fly, crawl, burrow and skitter across still water is part of a gathering "mass extinction," only the sixth in the last half-billion years.

"We are witnessing the largest extinction event on Earth since the late Permian and Cretaceous periods," the authors noted.

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The study, to be published in the journal Biological Conservation, pulled together data from more than 70 datasets from across the globe, some dating back more than a century.

By a large margin, habitat change—deforestation, urbanisation, conversion to farmland—emerged as the biggest cause of insect decline and extinction threat.

Next was pollution and the widespread use of pesticides in commercial agriculture.

The recent collapse, for example, of many bird species in France was traced to the use insecticides on industrial crops such as wheat, barley, corn and wine grapes.

"There are hardly any insects left—that's the number one problem," said Vincent Bretagnolle, an ecologist at Centre for Biological Studies.

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Britain has seen a measurable decline across 60 percent of its large insect groups, or taxa, followed by North America (51 percent) and Europe as a whole (44 percent).


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