A University of Oklahoma-led study shows that grasshopper numbers have declined over 30% in a Kansas grassland preserve over the past two decades. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the paper, “Nutrient dilution and climate cycles underlie declines in a dominant herbivore,” reveals a new potent and potentially widespread threat to Earth’s plant feeders: the dilution of nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and sodium in the plants themselves due to increasing levels of atmospheric CO2.
Click here for original story, Study reveals grasshopper declines associated with declines in quality of prairie grasses
Source: Phys.org