Livestock ranching threatens aquatic insects, large-scale analysis finds

A paper published this week in Global Change Biology led by Lindsey Barnes and Andrew Bladon of our Agroecology Group, describes the effect of livestock farming and ranching on aquatic insects.

The Group, led by Prof Lynn Dicks, has been involved in an international project bringing together multiple forms of data to predict insect biodiversity change (Cooke et al. 2025). Group members have been collecting and summarizing research (collating meta-analytic effect sizes) on the effect of human activities on insect biodiversity (Millard et al. 2025). 

Their new paper shows show that on average livestock farming and ranching significantly reduces species richness, but they did not find an effect on abundance. They suggest further research is needed and call for closer species-level research and improved tracking of numbers and density of livestock and water access to explain livestock’s varied effects on aquatic insects.

Read the paper: Barnes, L.A., Wenban-Smith, E., Skinner, G., Dicks, L.V., Millard, J. and Bladon, A., 2025. 'Differing impacts of livestock farming and ranching on aquatic insect biodiversity: A global meta-analysis.' Global Change Biology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.70513

Hopeful findings from the UK

Prof Dicks was interviewed about UK insect population change, on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday 23 September, following research into how ranges of insect species have changed over the last 30 years since 1990, published recently in Nature Communications.

She said, ‘We’re very lucky in the UK, we have the best insect datasets in the world, thanks to the studious efforts of hundreds of naturalists over many decades.’  This, combined with excellent data science and brilliant computational modelling by scientists from Rothamsted Research has resulted in some good news; our insects are not generally disappearing nationwide.

That said, insects are declining in numbers, but different species respond in different ways. Some rare species are doing well. For example the Shrill Carder Bee is recovering nationally, thanks to efforts by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Buglife and many volunteers. The Agroecology group is studying the effectiveness of habitat restoration for this species, in partnership with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, part of a European project called Restpoll.

Asked what we can do to help insects, Prof Dicks said, ‘We need to stop tidying up outside; insects need mess and diverse places to hide and shelter.  Many of them live in trees and in the soil.’ 

‘We can help insects cope with climate change and extreme temperatures by giving them places they can hide away in the shade.  Making sure there’s little bits of water around, and a variety of plants makes a big difference!’

Image: Four-spotted chaser dragonfly photo by Andrew Bladon