Scientists are seeing a concerning decline in insect biodiversity in tropical forests.
According to a study summarized in The Conversation, researchers suspect that changes in climate patterns, fueled by rising global temperatures, may be a large contributing factor to the fall of important tropical insects.
What’s happening?
Scientists from the University of Hong Kong and Queensland’s Griffith University reviewed 80 studies of insects, mostly in the tropical Americas, paying special attention to years with extreme temperatures, or containing El Niño events, which often coincide generally with the warmest years and are becoming more frequent and intense, according to The Conversation summary.
El Niño events are natural climate patterns characterized by changes in wind patterns, which impact sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Normally, strong trade winds, which blow from east to west across the Pacific Ocean, carry warm sea surface water toward the shores of Asia and Australia.
Under El Niño conditions, these trade winds are weakened, which causes warm sea surface water to be pushed back east toward the western coast of the United States. This causes disruptions in natural climate patterns and can bring intense rain and flooding to usually drier areas, as well as warm and drought-like conditions to normally wet areas — such as the tropics.
The new study, published in the journal Nature, found that El Niño events are correlated with negative effects on the biodiversity loss of spiders and insects — particularly butterflies and beetles — and the health of tropical forests.
“El Niño events appear to cause a rapid decline in both insect biodiversity, and the ecological tasks they perform. These trends were persistent and highly unnatural,” according to the study authors, per The Conversation. They continued, “Climate-fueled El Niños are causing many [insect] populations to fall so far, they cannot recover.”
Why is biodiversity loss concerning?
Protecting biodiversity in natural habitats helps protect the balance and order of operations in local ecosystems. When one part of the ecosystem falls out of balance, it impacts the rest of the food chain.
Some insects, such as butterflies, which researchers have found are declining in population size and species, are important pollinators that contribute to healthy ecosystems. Pollinators help with plant reproduction, which supports the local wildlife by providing an abundance of food.
Other insects contribute to the ecosystem by helping to decompose leaves, which allows the nutrients to return to the soil, enriching it for healthy plants.
Though these tropical insects are small, they play an important role in protecting the health of tropical forests, which contain “62% of global terrestrial vertebrate species,” according to a research article in the Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment journal.
What’s being done to protect biodiversity?
Researchers at the Butterfly Pavilion in Colorado have assisted in the life cycle of native Colorado fireflies, which have been threatened by habitat loss and changing climate patterns.
This successful attempt to save these insects may inspire scientists and conservation groups to protect the biodiversity of insects in tropical forests.
Another exciting effort to restore tropical habitats is seen in a Brazilian startup’s recent funding to restore forests in the Amazon rainforest. Re.green has successfully raised nearly $14.3 million to replant native plants and restore native habitats in the tropical rainforest.
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