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You may not like them at home, but insects are essential to ecosystems. And now, it seems that insects around the world are in a crisis and it's more serious – and more widespread – than scientists thought. A new study found that the insect population of a state forest in Puerto Rico is declining at an alarming rate. And the crash is restructuring the food web of the rainforest – the abundance of insect-eating animals has also declined.
The authors of the study cite climate change as the driving force behind the dramatic loss of tropical invertebrates.
While the temperature in the tropical forests of northeastern Puerto Rico has risen by two degrees Celsius since the mid-1970s, the biomass of arthropods – invertebrate animals such as insects, centipedes and bed bugs – has been multiplied by 60, according to a new result published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The findings corroborate the recent warnings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change regarding serious threats to the environment, given a global temperature rise of 2.0 degrees Celsius. As in other tropical regions, the Luquillo Rain Forest study area has already reached or exceeded an average temperature increase of 2.0 degrees Celsius, and the study reveals that the consequences are potentially catastrophic.
"Our results suggest that the effects of global warming in tropical forests could be even greater than expected," said Brad Lister, lead author of the study and faculty member of the Department of Biological Sciences of the United States. Polytechnic Institute of Rensselaer. "Insect populations in the Luquillo Forest are collapsing and, once this has started, the animals that eat them have inadequate nutrition, resulting in reduced reproduction and survival, as well as a decrease in abundance. "
The study "Decreasing climate-induced arthropod abundance restructures the rainforest food web" is based on data collected between 1976 and 2013 by the authors and the Luquillo long-term ecological research program in three mid-elevation habitats of the Luquillo Rainforest, Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, average maximum temperatures rose 2.0 degrees Celsius.
As a result of the decline in arthropods, the study also found that the insectivorous animal population of Luquillo, which includes lizards, frogs and birds, had declined simultaneously.
"This study in PNAS is a real cry of alarm – a clear call – that the phenomenon could be much larger and cover many ecosystems," said David Wagner, expert on invertebrate conservation at the University. of Connecticut. involved in this research, said the Washington Post. Wagner called the study "one of the most troubling articles I have ever read".
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