(NEW Publication) The Future Of Tropical Insect Diversity: Strategies to Fill Data & Knowledge Gaps

The tropics harbor a large proportion of biodiversity, with recent estimates suggesting that they hold the highest arthropod biomass densities and more than 70% of global insect species. Yet, the responses of tropical insects to environmental changes, such as habitat loss and climate change, are still understudied. In this recently published review in Current Opinion in Insect Science, we suggest a multipronged approach to fill existing data and knowledge gaps, together with example case studies that have enabled tropical insect conservation.

Graphical abstract (Slade & Ong, 2023)

We identify that integrated approaches involving traditional taxonomic methods, new molecular approaches, and novel monitoring and identification tools and applications are needed to address related and challenging questions regarding how many species of tropical insects exist, their distributions and natural history, the relative impacts of global change drivers on insect diversity across complex tropical landscapes, and the effects of insect declines on ecosystem functions and services.

Multipronged strategy to enable tropical insect conservation. (Slade & Ong, 2023)

Most importantly, the main barriers to addressing these challenges are a lack of capacity and funding for research on insects in tropical countries and a lack of recognition of their importance for ecosystem functioning and human wellbeing. We stress the importance of increasing the ‘entomo-literacy’, of governments and societies and to engage politicians and the public proactively and effectively, advocating the importance of insects, and the need for greater investment, funding, and capacity in entomology, particularly in tropical countries. Having co-created and equitable cross-boundary collaboration efforts between overseas and local researchers will in turn enable local capacity building.

Read the full paper here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214574523000603