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Insect declines in the Anthropocene

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 4, pages 683–686 (2023)Cite this article

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Reports of stark declines in invertebrate biomass prompted attention-grabbing news headlines about an ‘insect apocalypse’, fuelling public and scientific interest in the insect biodiversity crisis. However, substantial discussion has ensued regarding the magnitude and generality of these losses. In this Viewpoint, five researchers offer their views on the insect decline debate.

Within protected areas in Germany1, insect biomass declined by approximately 75% between 1989 and 2016. Even steeper declines were reported for the arthropod (including insect) biomass in Luquillo rainforest in Puerto Rico over a similar time period2. These alarming results prompted a wave of additional research, some of which received robust criticism3,4 regarding flaws in sampling design. After calls for caution and recommendations for improved research practice were issued5,6, subsequent meta-analyses ultimately painted a more complex picture with both positive and negative trends7.

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Acknowledgements

N.B. receives support from the German Research Foundation (DFG) (Biodiversity Exploratories SPP 1374, Reassembly FOR 5207) and Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) (Feda Initiative, BioDivKultur). L.V.D. receives support from the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) (NE/V007173/1). M.L.F. receives support from the US National Science Foundation (DEB-2114793). C.L.O. receives support from NERC (NE/V006533/1). E.M.S. receives support from the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) Academic Research Fund Tier 2 grant (grant no. MOE-T2EP30221–0020).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecological Networks, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Nico Blüthgen

  2. Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Lynn V. Dicks

  3. School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

    Lynn V. Dicks

  4. Department of Biology, University of Nevada Reno, Reno, NV, US

    Matthew L. Forister

  5. Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, University College London, London, UK

    Charlotte L. Outhwaite

  6. Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Eleanor M. Slade

Authors
  1. Nico Blüthgen
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  2. Lynn V. Dicks
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  3. Matthew L. Forister
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  4. Charlotte L. Outhwaite
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  5. Eleanor M. Slade
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Nico Blüthgen, Lynn V. Dicks, Matthew L. Forister, Charlotte L. Outhwaite or Eleanor M. Slade.

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The Contributors

Nico Blüthgen is a professor for ecological networks at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. Research projects from his lab and collaborators include land-use effects on insect communities, their interactions and functional roles in different ecosystems, from forests or grasslands in Germany to tropical rainforests in Ecuador. In the Ecuadorian Chocó, he currently studies multiple aspects of natural forest recovery from agricultural land.

Lynn Dicks is a professor of ecology at the University of Cambridge, UK. Her PhD was on the structure and functioning of flower-visiting insect communities, and she now leads research on insect conservation and management of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. She was a Co-ordinating Lead Author of the IPBES Assessment Report on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production in 2016.

Matthew Forister is a professor in the Biology Department at the University of Nevada, Reno. Research in his lab focuses on insect ecology and evolution, in particular on the conservation of butterflies in the western United States. Forister and his students are now overseeing part of the Shapiro monitoring programme, adding to over five decades of butterfly observations across northern California.

Charlotte Outhwaite is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, University College London. Her research on insect biodiversity change encompasses large-scale patterns and responses to major pressures. Her lab uses invertebrates as model systems to help address the challenges and opportunities associated with conservation, management and restoration of human-modified landscapes.

Eleanor Slade is an Assistant Professor at the Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and PI of the Tropical Ecology and Entomology Lab (https://teelabntu.wixsite.com/home). Her research explores the links between invertebrate biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, and community interactions. The broader goal of her work is to solve challenges and opportunities associated with conservation, management and restoration of human-modified landscapes.

Related links

Global Insect Threat-Response Synthesis: https://glitrs.ceh.ac.uk/

New York Times coverage of insect apocalypse: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html

Status of Insects Research Coordination Network: https://statusofinsects.github.io/index.html

The Atlantic article on the insect decline debate: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/02/insect-apocalypse-really-upon-us/583018/

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Blüthgen, N., Dicks, L.V., Forister, M.L. et al. Insect declines in the Anthropocene. Nat Rev Earth Environ 4, 683–686 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-023-00478-x

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