Are insects really declining as badly as previous studies have forecasted? This is what a recent study published in Science hopes to address as an international team of more than a dozen researchers investigated whether declines in insect biodiversity is as severe as trends are suggesting. This study has the potential to help researchers, conservationists, and the public better understand the current affairs of the global insect population, which remains the dominant species on the planet.
Dr. Rob Cooke, who is an ecological modeler at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and lead author of the study said, “There is a lot of interest in monitoring charismatic species such as bees and butterflies, but few people care about the supposedly unpleasant insects, even though they too provide benefits for us. For example, earwigs feed on aphids and other garden pests while cockroaches eat decaying material and keep soils healthy.”
Image of an earwig insect. (Credit: Charles J. Sharp CC BY-SA 4.0)
For the study, the researchers evaluated available data for all insect populations with the goal of developing models designed to predict future insect population trends. The team emphasized the lack of available data regarding most insect populations results in skewed insect population predictions and future trends. They proposed various methods for obtaining more available data, including obtaining expert opinions, in-depth experiments on insect threats, spatial comparisons, and time series trends.
“Insects are an incredibly important part of our ecosystems, pollinating around 80% of flowering plant species and vital for 35% of global food production, yet they are undervalued and understudied,” said Dr. Charlotte Outhwaite, who is a research fellow at the Zoological Society of London and a co-author on the study. “With a million described species it would take too long to figure what works best for each species. Instead, we want to find large-scale actions that benefit the most insects. For this, we need to use all the available information we have.”
Going forward, the researchers aspire to expand this approach with the goal of gathering available data on insect threats and population trends.
What new discoveries regarding insect decline will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Science, EurekAlert!
