Experiments are needed to quantify the main causes of insect decline
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In: Biology Letters, Vol. 19, No. 2, 20220500, 15.02.2023.
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
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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 -