Death by a thousand cuts

Lingchi, or ‘death by a thousand cuts’ refers to the now-defunct Chinese method of torture and execution; the unfortunate victim would be tied up and systematically hacked-at with sharp things until they died. This charming term has been loosely co-opted by ecologists, and is now used as a sort of slang to refer to species, ecosystems or environments that are under pressure from a range of different sources; for example, habitat loss, changing climate, feral species, changes in nutrient loadings, pollution, increasing salinity, increasing turbidity, loss of keystone species, overfishing, overstocking, soil degradation …the list, unfortunately, is quite long.

The thing about death by a thousand cuts, especially when taken in the ecological context to mean ‘the cumulative impact of stressors’ is that it is really difficult to determine exactly which stressor broke the camel’s back. There are two quite interesting examples of death by a thousand cuts that have been in the media over the past few decades; the collapse of colonies of the honeybee (Apis mellifera), and the ongoing decline of the health of the Great Barrier Reef.

Colony Collapse Disorder

In the early 2000s, apiarists in North America and Europe noticed, that honeybee colonies were collapsing and dying – the symptoms were the same on both continents. This collapse has been provided with the Asimov-sounding term ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’ or CCD. Now colony collapse disorder is nothing new; bee colonies have been known to die showing similar symptoms for centuries.The thing about the more recent CCD events is that they have increased enough to get scientists concerned. Really concerned.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

So – enter the researchers. For the past decade, a large number of studies have been undertaken in an attempt to determine which particular straw broke the camels back. Was it Neonicotinoids, which are currently the subject of an emotive pesticide tug-of-war in the European Union? Electromagnetic Radiation from increased numbers of mobile phone towers? The varroa mite? Climate Change?


Australian researchers came up with what may the answer to this question, and their findings were met with the sort of collective ‘uh – what?’ that is to be expected when the answer is ‘death by a thousand cuts’. Essentially, bee colonies are subjected to ever-increasing pressure from multiple stressors, and fewer colonies are able to survive. This is compounded by the behaviour of younger bees in stressed colonies – they will go and forage at a much younger age. This is on par with sending 5-year-old children to the supermarket. They lack the bee street-smarts required to evade nature’s equivalent of an odd looking man in a creepy white van. They also avoid the bee equivalent of ‘doing your chores’; by going out into the big wide world soon after pupation they spend less time contributing to the welfare of the colony as general housekeepers. This ends up badly for all involved, and the colony collapses.

The decline of the Great Barrier Reef

I had the great fortune to work with Professor Michael Warne on a project in tropical Cairns in Far North Queensland. While we were steering a small boat around the muddy estuarine waters of Trinity Inlet, I asked him about his thoughts on the health of the Great Barrier Reef. As it had happened, he mentioned that he had just finished working on a Scientific Consensus on the health of the Great Barrier Reef, and referred me to that exact document:

“The overarching consensus is that key Great Barrier Reef ecosystems are showing declining trends in condition due to continuing poor water quality, cumulative impacts of climate change and increasing intensity of extreme events.”

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

The reef is the equivalent of a massive super-colony of organisms, the vast majority of which are sensitive to changes in water quality, nutrient inputs and pesticide loads. Corals themselves are a pretty neat example of a symbiotic organism; during the day, the 'plant portion' of the coral photosynthesises and produces carbohydrates, oxygen and other bits and pieces; these are consumed by the 'animal portion' of the coral, which in turn breathes out carbon dioxide, providing the raw food for the plant.

It's a pretty neat balancing act that could, say, be completely screwed over by tiny amounts of herbicide (sayonara plant-portion of the coral), changes in turbidity (less sunlight =/= photosynthesis) or increased nutrient loads (this screws everything up by encouraging marine algae and Crown of Thorns Starfish to thrive, prosper and fuck shit up). The Great Barrier Reef also receives vast quantities of terrestrial runoff, containing diuron (from sugarcane farming - yep, a herbicide), fertilisers and elevated turbidity.


Again, death by a thousand cuts.


What makes both of these examples interesting is that they are both in the public eye, and are both widely reported on, but there isn't really a 'single bullet' answer that can save these critical environmental issues. Rather, the thousand ecological cuts that are currently contributing to a critical decline in the health of the Great Barrier Reef and the collapse of European Honeybee colonies require a high-level multi-faceted approach (science-speak for "we need to do a lot, and we also need to understand what we need to do to make these approaches effective". Unfortunately this sort of thing isn't cheap, or easy, or quick, especially in a world where science funding is cut by the sort of slash-happy bureaucrats who think that investing in science and innovation is terrible for society at-large, because who would want, like, clean air or renewable energy when we have all this lovely coal in the ground? /rant). 

While I understand that some of the greatest minds are currently working on these problems, I also get the feeling that what we are seeing may be the tip of the iceberg; while ecosystems and habitats can be resilient, ongoing degradation and stress will inevitably tip an ecosystem or environment over the edge and into decline. We just need to be aware that just because something is 'minor' or 'inconsequential', it may be the ecological straw that breaks the camel's back.