1.
Introduction
The continuing decline in the diversity and biomass of insects and other arthropods
has caused great concern not only among scientists, but also among society, policymakers
and stakeholders. A major reason for this is that many ecosystem services depend on
diverse insect communities. Despite numerous studies on the dynamics of insect communities
[1,2], their causes are still not fully understood [3]. Rather than focusing on additional
evidence of population declines, this special feature addresses the causes and consequences
of population and diversity trends, aiming at a better mechanistic understanding of
the observed dynamics.
The special feature includes two opinion papers, 10 time-series analyses spanning
10 to 120 years and two studies using space-for-time substitution. The studies cover
freshwater and terrestrial insect taxa across five biomes. The approaches are manifold,
linking population trends to species-specific functional traits and examining spatial
variation in population trends and their underlying drivers. Three of the major drivers
of insect declines [1] are covered: climate change, land-use change and invasive species.
Across the studies, one worrying pattern emerges: communities tend to become more
homogeneous, i.e. lose beta diversity. This homogenization will likely have drastic
consequences for ecosystem functioning and stability (figure 1).
Figure 1.
Overview of the relations between drivers of insect population trends and their effects
on communities and ecosystems as described in this special feature. The aspects in
grey are described in the literature but were not covered in this feature. The ant
in the background is the invasive Wasmannia auropunctata (photo credit: Alexander
Wild), which features in [4].
2.
Drivers of community change
(a)
Climate change
The warming climate influences both community composition and population dynamics
of single species through changes in average or extreme temperatures. Among North
American bumblebees, 37 of 46 studied species showed greater declines or lower increases
in site occupancy under observed temperature changes than would have occurred if temperatures
remained constant [5], suggesting that species have already reached their physiological
limits in many regions. In addition, changes in precipitation patterns can alter population
dynamics. For example, ant species that proliferated during the last decades in Denmark
were associated with wet habitats, while declining ant species occurred in dry, open
habitats [6]. In the same time span, average and frequency of precipitation had increased.
The opposite effect was observed for two Orthoptera species in Germany, which severely
decreased in wet and mesic grasslands over the study period (1988, 2004 and 2019),
possibly due to summer droughts and increased evaporation [7].
As insects are ectotherms, their metabolism and development are driven by temperature,
with warming typically resulting in faster development and higher metabolic rates
[8,9]. However, extreme temperatures outside a species' optimum thermal range can
slow development and thus reduce population growth rates [10,11]. This is especially
relevant for tropical insects, which usually live closer to their upper thermal limit
than their temperate counterparts [12,13]. Hence, global warming may be the main driver
of tropical insect declines [4], favouring species that thrive under warmer conditions.
Concerning species-specific climate-sensitivity traits, this was found in tiger moths
in the field [14], but also in a warming experiment with ants [15], both in a Panamanian
rainforest. In the temperate zone, similarly positive effects on thermophilous species
were observed for orthopterans [7] and for stream-dwelling mayflies, stoneflies and
caddisflies [16]. The shift to warm-adapted species thus appears as a more general
global phenomenon confirmed by many other studies on individual species trends [17]
and likely will result in an overall thermophilization of communities across many
taxa [18,19]. In turn, cold-adapted species will migrate toward the poles or higher
elevations [20,21], which can reduce their effective habitat area [22,23], thus increasing
their extinction risk [24], ultimately accelerating biodiversity loss.
(b)
Land-use change
Land-use change and land-use intensification were identified decades ago as major
causes of global biodiversity loss [25] and confirmed in several recent publications
[2,26,27]. The papers in this special feature provide further evidence and highlight
complex indirect effects that can cause insect declines. For example, as burning North
American tallgrass prairie—traditionally used as a conservation measure—became less
frequent over the last 34 years, grasshoppers needed more time for maturation [28].
This in turn contributed to declines in abundance as adults had less time to build
egg mass before reproducing. Land-use changes in Denmark (1900–2019) challenged ant
communities in several ways [6]. Three specialist species of dry, open habitats declined
due to habitat decreases, attributed to conversion into agriculture and forest. In
forest ecosystems, increased monocultures of coniferous plantations caused population
declines in three species, while one species benefited from this change [6]. In German
grasslands, fertilization contributed to species loss and an additive homogenization
of grasshopper communities [7]. In Brazilian freshwater ecosystems, dam and hydroelectric
power plant construction was pointed out as the main driver of abundance and richness
declines in freshwater insects due to lower water turbidity and nitrogen increase
[29]. Moreover, nutrient and pesticide inputs affected insect population dynamics
in Swiss freshwater ecosystems [16]. All this underscores that land-use intensification
is negatively impacting many species across taxa [1,26] resulting in homogenized communities
[30,31] composed of species with distinctive traits that enable them to cope with
increasing anthropogenic disturbances.
(c)
Invasive species
Biological invasions have increased massively in recent decades due to increased global
trade and human movement [32,33] and are considered an important cause of biodiversity
loss. Many invasive species negatively interact with or even displace native species
[34], but the impacts on ecosystems can be complex and often indirect. In a Canadian
forest, invasive earthworms directly and indirectly affect higher trophic levels mediated
by plants, herbivores and detritivores [35]. Total arthropod abundance, biomass and
species richness decreased significantly even at low levels of invasion. Another example
comes from the subtropical freshwater ecosystems in Brazil, where the invasion of
non-native insectivorous fishes appears as a major cause of freshwater insect declines
over the last 20 years [29]. Overall, the impact of invasive species on ecosystems
will probably keep increasing, which could particularly challenge species with low
competitiveness.
(d)
Interactions among drivers
Drivers of insect decline may interact, such that combination effects on insect populations
and communities can be more severe than the sum of single factors [36–38]. This special
feature also provides evidence of such interactions. Interactions between land use
and climate, and between land use and species invasions appear to be important drivers
of declines across Brazilian biomes [39]. A decrease in vegetation cover through intensified
land use, for instance, can reduce a habitat's potential to mitigate climate change-related
drought (e.g. in an urban context [40]) or extreme temperatures (e.g. through deforestation,
[41]). As another interaction, climate change can facilitate species invasions by
favouring generalized, heat-tolerant species with invasive potential [15]. Often however,
these interactive effects are hard to disentangle, which is why they are still poorly
studied. For example, declines in freshwater insects were associated both with nutritional
shifts in the water and with fish invasions [29], but it is hard to pinpoint the more
important cause. In addition, other drivers of insect decline (e.g. light pollution
[42]) have increased in impact over the past decades, making it even harder to disentangle
such interactions.
3.
Consequences for communities
Insect population trends are highly idiosyncratic, depending on taxonomic and functional
groups. However, among the species within each group, certain traits were often associated
with increasing or decreasing population trends. Winning species were usually warm-adapted
or moderately heat-tolerant [7,14–16], tolerant to pesticides and disturbances [6,16],
had invasive traits [15] and/or a broad dietary spectrum [16,43]. Decreasing species,
in contrast, preferred dry, nitrogen-poor habitats [7] and open forests [6] or had
a protein-rich diet [6]. This matches previous studies, which additionally identified
high rates of dispersal and habitat recolonization after disturbance as traits associated
with winners (e.g. [44]). Notably, climate change can select for different traits:
depending on the region, species preferring wet conditions could be losers (Germany:
[7]) or winners (Panama: [14]; Denmark: [6]). In addition, climate change could select
for high migratory ability (i.e. dispersal rate) [24] and high thermal plasticity
[45]. Genetically diverse species could also be at an advantage due to higher adaptability
[46].
These trait changes combined with an increase of generalists likely increases the
risk of homogenization. Thorn et al. [7] observed increasing homogenization of insect
communities over time, i.e. a loss in alpha and beta diversity. Other studies find
homogenizing effects on bumblebee and grasshopper communities [5,28]. Gebert et al.
[16] argue that common taxa which are already less sensitive to extreme temperatures,
become even more common in times of climate change, resulting in further homogenization.
If generalist taxa also exhibit invasive traits (e.g. [15,16]), interspecific competition
and species displacement becomes more likely especially as invasion rates are strongly
accelerated both by global trade and climate change [47–50].
All these factors ultimately lead to ‘novel communities’ composed of introduced species
and the surviving native ones [19]. New species may be beneficial for ecosystem functioning
if they can substitute decreasing native species. However, a loss of species from
the local or regional pool could result in lower functional redundancy and response
diversity, thus reducing ecosystem stability and resilience to climatic variation
or disturbance [51]. Besides, homogenization may directly lead to reduced functional
performance, e.g. for interaction partners relying on specialists [30]. For example,
a climate change-induced homogenization of alpine bumblebee communities led to a concomitant
decline in plants specialized on long-tongued bumblebee pollinators [52,53].
4.
Future directions
This special feature confirms that insect population trends vary a lot across taxa,
regions and realms [39,54]. This may be because drivers differ in importance between
regions. In addition, interconnections between realms or habitats make the effect
of drivers context-dependent [55,56]. In one study, only 60% of co-occurring arthropod
taxa at order level showed trends in the same direction [54]. Temporal trends in biomass,
abundance and/or diversity are so variable that using only selected ‘bioindicator’
taxa, as commonly done in conservation, might not be sufficient to understand this
variation and to develop effective conservation strategies. In addition, monitoring
should consider abundances of species rather than those of entire taxonomic groups,
as changes in community composition may go unnoticed if increases of one species mask
decreases of others in the same group. Standardized ‘biodiversity monitoring stations'
skilfully selected across biomes and realms with broad taxonomic and trophic coverage
will be useful here.
Beside population trends, we should concomitantly monitor how they affect insect-mediated
ecosystem functions such as pollination, decomposition, food for higher trophic levels
and biocontrol. This way, we can also identify key species for particular functions
[57] and understand how population dynamics will affect ecosystem functioning and
stability alike. To identify vulnerable species and predict community changes, trait-based
approaches will be useful, considering species-specific physiological traits (e.g.
drought resistance, nutritional needs, ability to mature or diapause under changing
climate) [58]. An important complement here is research on the plasticity and adaptive
potential (e.g. genetic diversity) in different species [46,59]. In this context,
we must keep in mind that abiotic and biotic conditions are dynamic and that the functional
importance of a species may vary over time.
Despite the need for further research, there is already sufficient knowledge on how
to mitigate species loss and promote biodiversity through political and individual
actions [60–65]. The two opinion pieces in this special feature highlight the potential
of approaches in addition to long-term monitoring. Weisser et al. [66] argue that
we can already identify the most important drivers from quantitative analyses of already
existing trend data, which should then be confirmed by driver-specific experiments.
With an even shorter timeframe necessary, Blüthgen et al. argue that we can already
conclude a lot from space-for-time approaches [67]. Both approaches provide scientific
evidence for effective and targeted conservation or restoration measures. However,
multiple approaches should be combined to avoid known issues inherent to each [3,68].
This special feature shows that there are complex interactions between major drivers
of insect population dynamics and that effects vary between taxa, functional groups
or ecosystems. Any implemented conservation measures should hence be accompanied scientifically
to ensure their success [69,70]. But the main practical lesson from this is that we
must manage habitats in a foresightful and adaptive way, anticipating unexpected developments.
This may include habitat connectivity to allow the migration of species with climate
change and enhancing local diversity to increase functional redundancy and thereby
ecosystem stability. A network of well-selected protected areas designed for insect
conservation, combined with integrative elements in managed landscapes can be valuable
here [71]. Moreover, we need to put more effort into preventing and mitigating human-induced
species invasions. Rather than only ‘more research’, we urgently need to realise conservation
and habitat restoration measures known to effectively promote and protect insect populations
and diverse communities to avoid further homogenization.