Guests: David Wagner, Thor Hanson

Populations of insects are plummeting around the globe. Bugs are in such steep decline that some scientists have called it an insect Armageddon. Today we will discuss what’s behind the worldwide die-offs of bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, and many other species and what impact the losses will have on ecosystems. DAVID WAGNER, an ecologist at the University of Connecticut is our guest. Then, conservation biologist THOR HANSON talks about the evolution of bees, why they’ve been particularly hard hit in recent years, and the critical role they play in natural and human worlds. Hanson is the author of Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees.