Drivers and impacts of insect biodiversity changes across pantropical forests

泛热带森林昆虫生物多样性变化的驱动因素和影响

• 批准号: MR/X032949/1
• 负责人: Filipe França
• 金额: $ 162.04万
• 依托单位: University of Bristol
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FX032949%2F1
• 关键词: Drivers; impacts; insect; biodiversity; changes

Safeguarding insect biodiversity has a global impact. Insects increase crop yields, help food production and economies, and are essential for ecosystem functioning. Scientific research and expertise must, therefore, ensure we not only understand what is causing global insect biodiversity changes but also enable us to mitigate the further consequences for nature and people. Tropical forests are an ideal setting to investigate the occurrence, drivers and consequences of insect biodiversity loss because they are home to much of Earth's terrestrial biodiversity - including the majority of all known species, and provide many ecosystem services upon which humanity relies. Despite the growing number of academic studies and media headlines drawing attention to 'collapses in insect biodiversity', the status of insect populations continues to attract insufficient research attention. This bias is evidenced by the fact that only c. 1% of all described insects have had their conservation status assessed by the IUCN compared with 72% of vertebrates. Our ability to inform better environmental decision-making and conservation policy-making is further limited by other three factors. First, the tropics have been mostly overlooked in previous large-scale and long-term assessments of insect biodiversity trends. Second, little is known about how the use of agricultural pesticides affects tropical insect populations in nearby forests. Finally, our knowledge of insect interaction networks within tropical forests is limited to a few assessments based on single locations or model taxa. As a result, we continue to miss a broader picture of the nature and scale of changes in tropical insects' diversity and populations, the factors driving these changes, and the further consequences for forest function and stability.To redress these gaps in our understanding, my research aims to: 1) investigate the occurrence, scale and causes of changes in tropical insect biodiversity; 2) quantify the impacts of agricultural pesticides and heavy metals on insect populations; 3) determine the cascade effects of insect loss for their interactions with other biological groups; and 4) promote biodiversity conservation through forecasting how distinct scenarios of climate change and land-use intensification will affect tropical insects to inform the decision-making. To achieve this, I will establish the first pantropical insect monitoring programme with standardized methods in Amazonian, African and Asian forests. This information will be combined with state-of-the-art ecotoxicology, metabarcoding, remote sensing and ecological modelling techniques to assess disturbance-driven impacts on insect communities and populations, changes in interaction networks with other taxonomic groups, and the contamination by distinct pollutants. Moreover, I will integrate information generated through the fellowship with large-scale spatialized insect abundance data from the study regions to forecast the impacts of further climate and land-use changes on insect biodiversity. To achieve impact and inform practices and policies, I will engage with distinct stakeholders in the study regions.To the best of my knowledge, this will be the first pantropical study aiming to investigate spatiotemporal changes in multiple insect groups surveyed with standardized methods in tropical forests. In doing so, my research will help us to understand the causes and mitigate the consequences of changes in tropical insect biodiversity; and generate data that will inform policy-making and biodiversity conservation strategies in the hyperdiverse tropics.

保护昆虫生物多样性具有全球性影响。昆虫提高作物产量，促进粮食生产和经济发展，对生态系统功能至关重要。因此，科学研究和专业知识必须确保我们不仅了解导致全球昆虫生物多样性变化的原因，而且使我们能够减轻对自然和人类的进一步影响。热带森林是调查昆虫生物多样性丧失的发生、驱动因素和后果的理想环境，因为它们是地球上大部分陆地生物多样性的家园——包括大多数已知物种，并提供人类赖以生存的许多生态系统服务。尽管越来越多的学术研究和媒体头条关注“昆虫生物多样性的崩溃”，但昆虫种群的状况仍然没有引起足够的研究关注。IUCN对所有已被描述的昆虫的保护状况进行了评估，而脊椎动物的这一比例为72%，这一事实证明了这种偏见。我们为更好的环境决策和保护政策提供信息的能力进一步受到其他三个因素的限制。首先，在以前对昆虫生物多样性趋势的大规模和长期评估中，热带地区大多被忽视了。其次，人们对农业农药的使用如何影响附近森林中的热带昆虫种群知之甚少。最后，我们对热带森林中昆虫相互作用网络的了解仅限于基于单一地点或模式分类群的一些评估。因此，我们对热带昆虫多样性和种群变化的性质和规模、推动这些变化的因素，以及对森林功能和稳定性的进一步影响，仍然缺乏更广泛的认识。为了弥补这些认识上的空白，我的研究旨在：1)调查热带昆虫生物多样性变化的发生、规模和原因；2)量化农药和重金属对昆虫种群的影响；3)确定昆虫损失与其他生物类群相互作用的级联效应；4)通过预测不同气候变化和土地利用集约化情景对热带昆虫的影响，促进生物多样性保护，为决策提供信息。为了实现这一目标，我将在亚马逊、非洲和亚洲森林建立第一个采用标准化方法的泛热带昆虫监测项目。这些信息将与最先进的生态毒理学、元条形码、遥感和生态建模技术相结合，以评估干扰对昆虫群落和种群的影响、与其他分类类群相互作用网络的变化以及不同污染物的污染。此外，我将结合研究区域的大尺度空间化昆虫丰度数据，预测未来气候和土地利用变化对昆虫生物多样性的影响。为了实现影响和告知实践和政策，我将与研究区域的不同利益相关者接触。据我所知，这将是第一个以标准化方法调查热带森林中多种昆虫类群时空变化的泛热带研究。这样，我的研究将帮助我们了解热带昆虫生物多样性变化的原因并减轻其后果；并生成数据，为制定政策和生物多样性保护战略提供信息。