[{"id":912,"title":"Cultural impacts of the biodiversity crisis and our disconnection from nature","sha":"fa8fea4b1199b93af46f0ca87ab5fda9","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"Dramatic declines in global biodiversity -- i.e., the Biodiversity Crisis -- continue to motivate research on the causes and consequences of environmental degradation. High profile papers on declines in insect diversity and abundance, for example, allude to cascading negative effects on ecosystem services, including nutrient cycling, pollination, natural control of pests, and on the survival of insectivores. In a parallel and similarly complex (and probably compounding) phenomenon, sometimes referred to as Nature Deficit Disorder, humans are spending less time connecting with the natural world. These phenomena are likely having profound, measurable impacts on humans' creative cultural output.\r\n\r\nInspiration, for example, is another \"service\" that may be impacted by the phenomena described above. Insects, through their behaviors, colors, extended phenotypes, and ecological interactions, frequently catalyze and influence creativity. Insects are beautiful, lively, tranquilizing, scary, annoying, funny, etc. Fewer encounters with these arthropods, however, may lead to losses in their representation in art, poetry, music, dance, and biomimicry. Analysis of cultural outputs over time might already reveal signatures of degradation that echo declines seen in the natural world: references are less sophisticated, perhaps, and fewer taxa are represented. Contemporary references may also have a different tone (wistful or negative) than historical references.","created_at":"2022-02-11T16:40:09.322Z","updated_at":"2022-02-26T06:00:44.361Z","zenodo_id":6288546,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6288546","subject":null,"tags":["biodiversity","culture","poetry","literature","art","insects","arthropods"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":711,"title":"The role of mineral depletion on insect depopulation","sha":"8e224d20d4fadb46bb0ca158956831d6","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"It has been established that the mineral content, particularly of trace minerals, in modern food crops is considerably lower than in their natural forms, a phenomenon that arises as a result of a number of causes. Intense fertilization methods, selective breeding of crop species, topsoil erosion and even plant morphology responses to elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide all contribute to radically depleted mineral content in cultivated crops. Wild plants can be expected to exhibit the same phenomenon, albeit to a lesser extent. This depletion could be expected to have significant nutritional implications for terrestrial animals. This effect would be more pronounced for insects than for feral grazing mammals, as the former have greater mobility to access and consume cultivated crops, which have the lowest mineral contents. \r\n\r\nIt has also been observed that insect populations have plummeted in the last 50 years, with no consensus as to the contributing causes and their respective severity. The role of nutritional deficiencies arising from mineral depletion has yet to be investigated, and could be a significant contributor to insect de-population.","created_at":"2020-02-28T08:58:40.575Z","updated_at":"2020-03-14T06:00:49.558Z","zenodo_id":3709099,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3709099","subject":null,"tags":["insects","bees","extinction","nutrition"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null}]