TY - JOUR

T1 - Experiments are needed to quantify the main causes of insect decline

AU - Weisser, Wolfgang

AU - Blüthgen, Nico

AU - Staab, Michael

AU - Achury, Rafael

AU - Müller, Jörg

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s).

PY - 2023/2/15

Y1 - 2023/2/15

N2 - Sparked by reports of insect declines of unexpected extent, there has been a surge in the compilation and analysis of insect time series data. While this effort has led to valuable databases, disagreement remains as to whether, where and why insects are declining. The 'why' question is particularly important because successful insect conservation will need to address the most important drivers of decline. Despite repeated calls for more long-term data, new time series will have to run for decades to quantitatively surpass those currently available. Here we argue that experimentation in addition to quantitative analysis of existing data is needed to identify the most important drivers of insect decline. While most potential drivers of insect population change are likely to have already been identified, their relative importance is largely unknown. Researchers should thus unite and use statistical insight to set up suitable experiments to be able to rank drivers by their importance. Such a coordinated effort is needed to produce the knowledge necessary for conservation action and will also result in increased monitoring and new time series.

AB - Sparked by reports of insect declines of unexpected extent, there has been a surge in the compilation and analysis of insect time series data. While this effort has led to valuable databases, disagreement remains as to whether, where and why insects are declining. The 'why' question is particularly important because successful insect conservation will need to address the most important drivers of decline. Despite repeated calls for more long-term data, new time series will have to run for decades to quantitatively surpass those currently available. Here we argue that experimentation in addition to quantitative analysis of existing data is needed to identify the most important drivers of insect decline. While most potential drivers of insect population change are likely to have already been identified, their relative importance is largely unknown. Researchers should thus unite and use statistical insight to set up suitable experiments to be able to rank drivers by their importance. Such a coordinated effort is needed to produce the knowledge necessary for conservation action and will also result in increased monitoring and new time series.

KW - arthropod

KW - biodiversity loss

KW - conservation

KW - land-use

KW - Biology

KW - Ecosystems Research

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85148087625&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1098/rsbl.2022.0500

DO - 10.1098/rsbl.2022.0500

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 36789531

AN - SCOPUS:85148087625

VL - 19

JO - Biology Letters

JF - Biology Letters

SN - 1744-9561

IS - 2

M1 - 20220500

ER -