Department of Biology, Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557, USA.
Department of Biology, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA.
Science. 2021 Mar 5;371(6533):1042-1045. doi: 10.1126/science.abe5585.
Uncertainty remains regarding the role of anthropogenic climate change in declining insect populations, partly because our understanding of biotic response to climate is often complicated by habitat loss and degradation among other compounding stressors. We addressed this challenge by integrating expert and community scientist datasets that include decades of monitoring across more than 70 locations spanning the western United States. We found a 1.6% annual reduction in the number of individual butterflies observed over the past four decades, associated in particular with warming during fall months. The pervasive declines that we report advance our understanding of climate change impacts and suggest that a new approach is needed for butterfly conservation in the region, focused on suites of species with shared habitat or host associations.
关于人为气候变化在昆虫数量减少中所起的作用，目前仍存在不确定性，部分原因是我们对生物对气候的反应的理解常常因栖息地丧失和退化以及其他复合压力源而变得复杂。我们通过整合专家和社区科学家的数据来解决这一挑战，这些数据包括过去四十年中在美国西部 70 多个地点进行的数十年监测。我们发现，在过去的四十年中，观察到的蝴蝶个体数量每年减少 1.6%，特别是与秋季月份的变暖有关。我们报告的普遍减少提高了我们对气候变化影响的认识，并表明该地区的蝴蝶保护需要采取新的方法，侧重于具有共同栖息地或宿主关联的物种组合。
