A team of scientists from South Africa and the United Kingdom have developed a synthesis framework, integrating multiple evidence streams, that will allow for the rapid assessment of changes in insect biodiversity.
“We know that insect biodiversity is changing, and that there have been many declines in parts of the world. However, we do not know how severe or pervasive the problem is. More critically, we lack a clear understanding of why insect biodiversity is changing," they write in a major review article published in Science recently.
Prof. Cang Hui, a biomathematician from Stellenbosch 肆客足球's Department of Mathematical Sciences and one of the co-authors, says the aim of the synthesis framework is to provide a roadmap towards an evidence-based synthesis of changes in insect biodiversity on which conservation policies can be built.
“We cannot wait decades for comprehensive monitoring data. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework set an ambitious goal to restore biodiversity by 2050: to achieve this we need to understand what scale of actions will be required to reverse historical declines," he explains.
Modelling global insect biodiversity change through integration of evidence
Prof. Hui is part of the team of scientists working on the Global Insect Threat-Response Synthesis (GLiTRS) project, funded by the National Environmental Research Council Highlight Topics program. It is a consortium of six institutions in the UK and South Africa.
Their objective is to build a global threat-response model, integrating many lines of existing evidence. In other words, instead of waiting for more high-quality data before acting, as is commonly argued, they have taken a different approach: “We argue that the urgency of the situation demands that we make better use of the data that is available now, however limited," they write in the review paper.
Four lines of evidence are synthesised and integrated in the GLiTRS project to address this challenge - time series, spatial comparisons, experiments, and expert opinion. Mathematical ecology and modelling help identify trends from the first two sources. Hui explains: “Insect time series exhibit intermittent fluctuations, yet they are both temporally autocorrelated and spatially synchronised. If we can determine the correct spatial and temporals scales, we may be able to extrapolate these trends to unsampled areas and future time periods."
Dr Rob Cooke, an ecological modeller at the United Kingdom Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and joint lead author of the study, concurs: “We need to find out whether insect declines are widespread and what's causing them. The challenge is like a giant jigsaw puzzle where there are thousands of missing pieces, but we do not have decades to wait to fill these gaps and then act."
Dr Charlotte Outhwaite of the Zoological Society of London's (ZSL) Institute of Zoology, joint lead author of the study, concludes: “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."
Did you know?
- Insects are the dominant form of animal life on our planet (equal weight to all humans and livestock combined, about 1 billion tons).
- Insects are threatened by a combination of 52 human-made threats, including land-use change, climate change, agricultural intensification, pollution, pesticides, and introduced species.
- Currently only about 1.2% of insect species out of about 1 million described species have undergone the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List assessments necessary to calculate extinction risk, of which 1/4 were evaluated as Data Deficient.
- Insects comprise up to 90% of all multicellular animal species, with the majority still undescribed (an estimated total of 5.5 million insect species).
Ecological modelling and mathematical ecology are fast-growing fields with high demand for skilled graduates. Experts work with global agencies, research institutes, NGOs, and industry to tackle urgent ecosystem challenges. Various international grants and initiatives offer aspiring scholars opportunities to advance their careers through postgraduate studies in biomathematics. Click here to explore the opportunities – SARChI team
The article titled “Integrating multiple evidence streams to understand insect biodiversity change" was published in Science this week. It is available online at https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adq2110
?On the photo above: 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 (left) feed on aphids and other garden pests while cockroaches (right) eat decaying material and keep soil healthy. Pictured here is the endemic earwig, Proforficula peringueyi, and a Cape Zebra Cockroach from Table Mountain National Park in the Western Cape. Images: Hamish Robertson & Gigi Laidler, iNaturalist, CC-BY-NC, https://inaturalist.nz/photos/70132865 and https://inaturalist.nz/photos/15270643
