School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Curr Biol. 2024 Aug 19;34(16):R770-R771. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.06.059.
Insects are posited to be declining globally. This is particularly pertinent in tropical forests, which exhibit both the highest levels of biodiversity and the highest rates of biodiversity loss. However, for the hyper-diverse tropical insects there are scant data available to evidence declines. Understanding tropical insect diversity and its response to environmental change has therefore become a challenge, but it is estimated that 80% of tropical insect species remain undescribed. Insect biodiversity predictions are based mostly on well-studied taxa and extrapolated to other groups, but no one knows whether resilience to environmental change varies between undescribed and described species. Here, we collected staphylinid beetles from unlogged and logged tropical forests in Borneo and investigated their responses to environmental change. Out of 252 morphospecies collected, 76% were undescribed. Undescribed species showed higher community turnover, reduced abundance and decreased probability of occurrence in logged forests. Thus the unknown components of tropical insect biodiversity are likely more impacted by human-induced environmental change. If these patterns are widespread, how accurate will assessments of insect declines in the tropics be?
昆虫在全球范围内被认为是在减少。这在热带森林中尤为明显，热带森林既有最高水平的生物多样性，也有最高的生物多样性丧失率。然而，对于高度多样化的热带昆虫来说，几乎没有可用的数据来证明它们的减少。因此，了解热带昆虫多样性及其对环境变化的反应已成为一项挑战，但据估计，80%的热带昆虫物种仍未被描述。昆虫生物多样性的预测主要基于研究充分的分类群，并外推到其他群体，但没有人知道在环境变化方面，未被描述的物种和已被描述的物种的恢复力是否不同。在这里，我们从婆罗洲的未采伐和采伐过的热带森林中收集了隐翅虫，并研究了它们对环境变化的反应。在所收集的 252 个形态种中，有 76%是未被描述的。未被描述的物种在有记录的森林中表现出更高的群落周转率、更低的丰度和更低的出现概率。因此，热带昆虫生物多样性的未知部分很可能更容易受到人类引起的环境变化的影响。如果这些模式广泛存在，那么对热带昆虫减少的评估将有多准确？
