I hear folks saying bugs are dying off because of changes in the environment, but shouldn’t bugs be some of the best equipped to handle changes? I imagine they reproduce faster than humans, and so I’d think their genes could adjust faster as well. You’d think we’d be having a worse time than bugs as the environment changes?
In: Biology
Everything is changing too fast for those who don’t have machines and clothes to let them adapt artificially.
Cockroaches are doing just fine. Evolution doesn’t mean that every species survives. Some are evolutionary dead ends.
Evolution at the level you’re talking about takes a long time and more often than not results in extinction. Humans adapt by ignoring evolution, we don’t rely on genetic drift to overcome the environment. We either develop tools to survive the environment, or we modify the environment.
This isn’t quite an ELI5 answer but is a one-stop-shop answer. The problem is explained by a theory called Punctuated Equilibrium
They ultimately would adapt faster, but we’re talking about a new generation every year for most insects versus a generation every 15-20 for people. Evolution is something that happens over tens of thousands of years even for relatively small changes.
That said, your basic premise is off because there aren’t any insects “dying off”. There has been some evidence of decline in some species due to pesticides and other impacts, but no-one credible is talking about extinction events.
Death is evolution. If the sole food source of a species vanishes, the species starts dying. Only the members of that species that have mutations that allow them to find an alternative food source survive. Let’s say 10% find a food source. We still see 90% die off.
Germs are a good example. Antibacterial soap might kill 99.9% but the 0.1% that survives is what will get to reproduce and slowly that antibacterial agent becomes ineffective as those mutant strains become more common.
The environment is changing faster than nature is able to keep up with, that’s why anthropogenic climate change is a big deal. It’s not that the climate is changing, it’s the *rate* at which the climate is changing that’s so alarming. Humans have been in control of our environment for a long time, we can build shelter and AC and whatnot.
A bigger issue facing insects in particular, however, is that we’re tearing down their native habitat, replacing it with farmland, then spraying that farmland with broad spectrum insecticides. We’re killing them on purpose because they’re threatening our food supply that we put right in the middle of where they live. Any time they adapt to those insecticides we just create new ones. Widespread collapse of insect populations is pretty much directly our fault, we’re destroying their food supply, their habitats, and poisoning them to boot.
I’m gonna guess the reason they’ve endured as they have is linked to the sheer numbers of them.
Isn’t it something like all the ants vastly outweigh the entirety of the rest of the earth’s biomass?
Wipe out trillions, 98% and there’s still billions left that made it through whatever environmental change they went through.
Which bugs? Cockroaches are adapting just fine. Mosquitos and ants are everywhere.
You’re using the biological definition of adapt for bugs, but day to day English definition of adapt for humans. That’s the main problem with your premise. Biological adaptation has a quite different meaning.
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