The pesticides, many of which are currently used in Europe and
Australia, are responsible for reducing the regional diversity of invertebrates
in streams and rivers by up to 42 percent, researchers report in the
Proceedings of the US Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Mikhail A. Beketov and
Matthias Liess from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in
Leipzig, together with Ben Kefford from the University of Technology, Sydney
and Ralf B. Schäfer from the Institute for Environmental Sciences Landau,
analysed the impact of pesticides, such as insecticides and fungicides, on the
regional biodiversity of invertebrates in flowing waters using data from
Germany, France and Victoria in Australia. The authors of the now-published
study state that this is the first ever study which has investigated the
effects of pesticides on regional biodiversity.