NEW PUBLICATION: Identifying Knowledge & Capacity Gaps in Southeast Asian insect conservation

The hyper-diverse tropical region of Southeast Asia is experiencing high levels of anthropogenic impacts, such as deforestation and agricultural expansion, that continue to threaten the region's biodiversity. For Southeast Asian insects, a high proportion of species remain undescribed and limited data on population trends and dynamics, coupled with limited funding and research, continue to hamper insect conservation efforts in the region. To identify knowledge and capacity gaps in Southeast Asian insect conservation, our latest study published in Ecology Letters presents a quantitative assessment of insect occurrence records, insect studies for the region and global '#conservation' posts from Twitter.

Graphical abstract showing the identified gaps and proposed solutions to address them. Source: Ong et al. 2025.

We retrieved more than 500,000 Southeast Asian insect occurrence records deposited in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). While the number of records increased over time, they were dominated by Lepidoptera records (butterflies and moths) and were unevenly distributed across Southeast Asia.

Map of Southeast Asia with insect occurrence records (from GBIF) depicted as colored points. Red points dominate the map, indicating that Lepidoptera records are most common. Source: Ong et al. 2025.

Across 7,572 Southeast Asian insect studies, we identified nine research themes. Most studies focused on taxonomy and natural history but were biased towards vector and agriculturally important groups. We also found that conservation and ecology studies were lacking in most countries.

Co-occurrence matrices that summarize the analysis of Southeast Asian insect studies. Top matrix: Level of co-occurrence between research themes and study insect orders. Bottom matrix: Level of co-occurrence between research themes and study country. Source: Ong et al. 2025.

From the Southeast Asian insect studies, we extracted authorship and funding information, and found that the majority of authorship and funding sources were from countries located outside of Southeast Asia.

Percentage of authors and funding sources of insect studies conducted in each Southeast Asian country. The majority of authors and funding sources are from countries located outside of Southeast Asia. Source: Ong et al. 2025.

We analysed more than 500,000 "#conservation" posts in Twitter. We found that insects were vastly under-represented and only contributed to less than 3% of all '#conservation' posts. Insect-related posts were also biased towards popular groups, such as bees and butterflies.

Top half: Graph showing the percentage of all '#conservation' posts across the taxonomic groups from 2009 to 2022. This is overlaid by a trend line showing the total number of '#conservation' posts across the years. Bottom left: Word cloud of the top 20 occurring words in insect '#conservation' posts. Bottom right: Number of insect '#conservation' posts across calendar days, with the highest number of posts recorded on World Bee Day. Source: Ong et al. 2025

We proposed solutions to address these gaps, such as integrative taxonomic approaches, increasing regional collaborations and public engagements. Ultimately, these solutions require political prioritization and funding to overcome the impediments towards insect conservation efforts in Southeast Asia.

Source. Ong et al. 2025.

For more information on this study, check out the full paper, which is currently free to read and available here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ele.70038