Predicting a global insect apocalypse
Predicting a global insect apocalypse
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DOI：
10.1111/icad.12367
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发表时间：
2019-07-01
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Leather, Simon R.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Cardoso, Pedro;Leather, Simon R.
1.在过去的三年里，全球媒体头条新闻纷纷预测全球昆虫末日和随后的自然生态系统崩溃，这是一场所谓的“生态大决战”，导致我们所知的人类文明的灭亡。尽管这些论文令人担忧，但迄今为止所有关于全球昆虫灭绝的研究都清楚地反映了普雷斯顿的不足，对物种的丰富程度及其时空趋势普遍缺乏了解。目前关于全球昆虫丰度趋势的现有数据总是受到系统发育、功能、生境、空间和时间偏差的影响。在此，我们建议，为了跟踪昆虫（和所有其他类群）群落的真实的全球变化，必须避免数据收集中的偏见或缺陷。一个优化的计划将以最少的投资最大限度地提高系统发育，功能，栖息地，空间和时间的覆盖面。标准化取样将提供原始数据，这是丰度和生物量形式的第一步。然后，只要有可能，个体将被识别到物种水平，形态种方法或遗传学作为中间步骤，补充甚至是非描述物种的最后步骤。如果标准化的丰度和生态数据可以随时提供，生物多样性的趋势可以在真实的时间跟踪，使我们能够预测和防止即将到来的全球昆虫启示。
1. The last 3 years have seen a global outbreak of media headlines predicting a global insect apocalypse and a subsequent collapse of natural ecosystems, a socalled `ecological armageddon' resulting in the demise of human civilisation as we know it. Despite the worrying implications of these papers, all studies on global insect extinction to date clearly reflect the Prestonian shortfall, the general lack of knowledge on the abundance of species and their trends in space and time.2. Data currently available concerning global insect abundance trends invariably suffer from phylogenetic, functional, habitat, spatial and temporal bias. Here, we suggest that to follow the real global changes in insect (and all other taxa) communities, biases or shortcomings in data collection must be avoided.3. An optimised scheme would maximise phylogenetic, functional, habitat, spatial and temporal coverage with minimum investment. Standardised sampling would provide primary data, on a first step in the form of abundance and biomass. Individuals would then be identified to species level whenever possible, with a morphospecies approach or genetics serving as intermediate steps, complementing or even final steps for non-described species.4. If standardised abundance and ecological data can be readily made available, biodiversity trends can be tracked in real time and allow us to predict and prevent an impending global insect apocalypse.