Disproportionate declines of formerly abundant species underlie insect loss.

ABSTRACT: Studies have reported widespread declines in terrestrial insect abundances in recent years^1-4, but trends in other biodiversity metrics are less clear-cut^5-7. Here we examined long-term trends in 923 terrestrial insect assemblages monitored in 106 studies, and found concomitant declines in abundance and species richness. For studies that were resolved to species level (551 sites in 57 studies), we observed a decline in the number of initially abundant species through time, but not in the number of very rare species. At the population level, we found that species that were most abundant at the start of the time series showed the strongest average declines (corrected for regression-to-the-mean effects). Rarer species were, on average, also declining, but these were offs

SUBMITTER: van Klink R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11006610 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature