From bees to butterflies, ants to wasps, insect populations of all kinds are at risk, according to a growing scientific consensus. Their decline also threatens the many ecosystem services that depend on them, including food production.
“It’s clear that we’re experiencing massive insect declines both in species and in abundance,” said WSU conservation biologist Cheryl Schultz. “We are becoming increasingly aware that species that were once common across the landscape are now rare.”
To avert this potential disaster, Schultz recently joined more than 70 scientists from 21 countries in issuing a “Road Map for Insect Conservation and Recovery” in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
In their road map, the scientists outlined steps to slow and help reverse the decline in insect populations. They propose immediate “no regret” solutions, steps that can only help insects recover while they work to build more scientific knowledge of the problem. These immediate steps include increasing landscape heterogeneity in agriculture; phasing out synthetic pesticides and fertilizers; and enhancing “citizen science” as a way of obtaining more data on insect diversity and abundance.
Longer term actions include creating large-scale assessments of insect populations, conducting new research to better understand human-caused stressors on insect survival and starting a global monitoring program. (For the full list of solutions see the image at the link below).