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@Andrew Davidson: I think this article both misleading and incorrect, over-sensationalised and reminiscent of the tabloid press.

In the "Reviews and studies" section the first paragraph is about invertebrates, and not just insects. The second paragraph is about arthropods and not just insects. The third paragraph is about IUCN-listed insects, the big noticeable insects that the public are interested in, and not insects in general.

The fourth and final paragraph is more worthwhile but it is using insect biomass and specifically mentions butterflies, bees and moths. One missing butterfly has rather a heavy weighting in biomass terms compared to aphids or midges. Also, the source mentions such things as intensive crop production, removal of field verges and pesticide use in the area where the research was done, not necessarily typical of the whole world.

Our Insect article states that globally, there are estimated to be "5.5 million insect species with around 1 million insect species currently found and described", and this article states "About 40% of species are threatened by extinction". What rubbish! I'm tempted to send the article to AfD, but the subject is probably notable because the "science for the masses" journalists have written about it. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:01, 3 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there are certainly some difficulties, and the use of figures about invertebrates-in-general and arthropods-in-general does not help the article's case. However, evidence of decline is available from many reliable sources (not yet cited in the article) describing insect declines in different regions of the world. I think what is needed is a more thorough examination of the evidence of declines

a) in different parts of the world

b) in different species

c) in total numbers of insects.

Something also needs to be said, as you imply, about the difference between the presumed total number of insect species, and the number described by science. Then any figures for decline can be related carefully to one or other of these. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:52, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This had already been discussed extensively over at Insect with respect to all the "Insect Armageddon" stuff and criticism of science media report as well as occasional journal articles. The short of it was that this subject should be handled at Insect#Diversity and the daughter article Insect biodiversity. That was the preference over even creating an insect decline section, so creation of a new page goes well beyond that.

The best course of action would be to just redirect this to Insect#Diversity. A lot of this is stuff already discussed that didn't pass muster because of being primary sources, and there are a ton of reviews discussing the subject of insect decline. This article gets more into WP:SYNTH territory by just listing studies because the weight of those reviews aren't really coming into play here. I'm not sure what if anything could really be merged over there yet though. This is definitely a subject to stick to reviews on given all the scientific criticism out there on poorly designed studies or ones overblown by reporting. Kingofaces43 (talk) 13:56, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to support a redirect. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:19, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Let's not be hasty here. While brief, this article by The Colonel (Andrew D) is a first class piece of work, accurately reflecting scientific consensus. Whereas the treatment of Insect decline at the main Insect page doesn't even rise to the level of fringe - it's appalling bad. There's just a couple of sentences on the subject. In blatant violation of normal practice for science articles, a blog by a junior ecologist has been given equal weight to rebut a meta study. Even the blog has arguably been misrepresented to claim the study often excludes "data the (sic) shows increases in diversity". (The study doesn't exclude such data, and even the blog doesn't claim that, though granted in makes some spurious arguments in that direction.)

Going back to your original point Chiswick Chap, there unfortunately doesn't seem to be much discussion in the literature on the apparent difficulty in estimating the overall % of species at risk. This is likely as for statistically sophisticated scientists, the issue can be seen as almost too obvious to mention. But let me lay out the basics.

Assuming it's correct that's there's very roughly 5 million insect species, with only about 20% of them identified, it's obviously impossible to individually track their declines. What we can do is track overall declines by measuring total biomass, which to a large extent captures declines for all species, whether or not they've been individually identified. As per multiple studies in places like UK (Shortall et al., 2009) , Germany (Hallmann et al., 2017 ) and Puerto Rica ( Lister and Garcia, 2018) total insect biomass has been declining these past few decades at a rate that averages at about 2.5% / year (Linear). Clearly by basic maths, a 2.5% linear decline would mean total insect biomass declining to zero in just 40 years. So if there really is an ongoing 2.5% linear decline, it's trivial to extrapolate that 100% of insects species would be extinct by about 2060.

The 2.5% linear discussion was just to make the extrapolation point in simple terms. Naturally, the good scientists in the Sánchez-Bayo meta study appreciate there isn't really a linear decline, and that a more accurate approximation is an exponential decline of about ~4.6% (i.e., each year there's about a 4.6% loss of the previous years biomass). This implies total biomass declining by over 40% in just 11 years, by over 70% in 26 years, and by over 99% in 100 years. The Sánchez-Bayo study treats this and much other data (e.g. relating to actual technical extinctions, where certain insects haven't been observed for >50years) in a sophisticated manner. For example they make good use of rigorous methodologies like ANOVA. Thus they can make extrapolations to the claim that we may see "extinction of 40% of the world's insect species over the next few decades." (direct quote from the abstract of the Wyckhuys & Sánchez-Bayo study FeydHuxtable (talk) 15:46, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So basically, no reason against a redirect, especially discounting the aggrandizing language. Do keep in mind you've also been made very aware it's inappropriate to cherry-pick undue studies like Sánchez-Bayo based on discussions at Insect and attempts to make it clear to you what policy problems you were getting hung up on previously. You've already been invited multiple times to develop content at the diversity section/article if you felt strongly about something with appropriate sourcing and weight, so it's really odd just to continue soapboxing about the coverage there being "appallingly bad".

The take home has always been that the insect armageddon thing as presented in media and sources you are picking is largely undue in terms of what the literature as a whole actually discusses, and that if someone wants to develop specific content based on secondary sources, the WP:BURDEN is on them to do it over at Insect/Insect biodiversity first in order to even begin assessing if something like a split is needed from there or the biodiversity article. Based on what we've seen so far here, there hasn't been any reasoning for keeping this page as more than a redirect with the other articles in mind. I also consider this inadvertent and not intended by Andrew Davidson, but we also need to be careful of a POV WP:COATRACK when insect decline gets pulled out of the larger context of the literature like what happened here. Andrew at least avoided common tropes like extrapolating the 2016 German study as a worldwide claim, but we really need to stick to what the totality of reviews say on the subject rather than focus on primary studies. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:55, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And just to be clear, the redirect target probably should be Insect biodiversity rather than at the Insect page's summary of it. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:25, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There's nothing undue about the Sánchez-Bayo study. I've produced stacks of high quality papers & science journalism in line with what Sánchez-Bayo says. All you've presented to support your OR opinion that it's undue is a random paper by a long since retired 98 year old and a blog by a junior ecologist I can't believe you have the gall to imply I've been soap boxing on talk rather than working on developing content. Since 2017, I've many times added high quality, balanced & well sourced summaries of the decline phenomena, which you’ve 100% reverted. Hence the need for these admitedly annoying talk page discussions. FeydHuxtable (talk)

This has been repeatedly discussed and refuted at other pages, so we're more or less required by WP:CONSENSUS to ignore your claims that this is not a heavily criticized topic. If it's still unclear why this is such a problem and you don't wish to listen to me, try asking some of the other insect-related editors at Wikiproject Insects. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:45, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Talk of the tabloid press is absurd as this topic has been covered in detail by the quality press, based upon reputable scientific papers. It is therefore quite notable and so we should resist any attempt to delete the topic as the OP suggests. The title and scope of the page is modelled on the similar Decline in amphibian populations. That is rated as a Good Article and so seems a good example to follow. It took five years for that page to reach that level but we have only just started here. I expect that that there is much more digesting of the detail to be done but one has to start somewhere and so here we are. Andrew D. (talk) 17:03, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I've gone ahead and at least put in the previously agreed upon consensus text for the insect decline topic as a stopgap until some time has passed for others to comment on a redirect. We can't WP:COATRACK the subject like this. Keep in mind that since this deals with pesticides and 1RR, we have to stick with the consensus version and generally follow WP:BRD when new edits are disputed. As it stands though, this scope is just entirely redundant with the other articles, which was the problem from the start. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:45, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted as your claims seem false. For the reasons described above, the coverage of the decline phenomena on the Insect page is appallingly bad. At least there a case could be made to keep coverage very brief as main article is about the wider topic, not purely about the decline as is the case here. FeydHuxtable (talk) 22:38, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, you're arguing for a WP:COATRACK, so it's inappropriate to that much less edit war it back in despite warning. Please remember to undo that edit warring some other editors don't have to fix that mistake. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:45, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• WP:COATRACK is an essay which, in a nutshell, says that "Articles about one thing shouldn't mostly focus on another thing." This article is about the decline of insect populations and mostly focusses on that topic. That essay therefore seems irrelevant. More relevant is WP:BLANK, which is a guideline and so stronger than an essay. This indicates that we should not edit to leave the page "without any substantial content". An indiscriminate and wholesale removal of the body of the article is therefore improper. Reversion of such disruptive action is to be expected. Andrew D. (talk) 09:33, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Essays supplement policy and guidelines often as explanatory reading. You could read WP:POVFORK too, but at the end of the day, circumventing WP:CONSENSUS policy through a new page is disruptive no matter what you call it, and it should be expected that such actions will be reverted, especially since they violate the intent 1RR DS. When content is disputed as part of the 1RR pesticide DS, you are expected not to edit war it back in as Feyd did (and they've been warned about that many times). Instead, you need to gain consensus for it. It was clear from the start of this discussion that your version did not have consensus starting with Cwmhiraeth, so we needed to go back to the last consensus version that was being circumvented to avoiding blanking the page if we're going to have anything. If it wasn't for that, we'd automatically be at AfD rather than letting this conversation go for a bit as others might chime in on the redirect. If you're not happy with that and want to flesh out content of the subject, it's been repeatedly pointed out where that work needs to be done in order to have appropriate WP:WEIGHT before even considering anything like a proper WP:SPLIT. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:51, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This seems like wiki lawyering nonsense I'm afraid. The version you've edit warred to seems to be Fringe, as well described here. I'm restoring the stable version, until there are either sound arguments or at least majority support to do otherwise. FeydHuxtable (talk) 08:24, 6 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If edit warring continues, I am going to block the involved users. --Leyo 09:23, 6 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]