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  • Review Article
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Causes and consequences of insect decline in tropical forests

Nature Reviews Biodiversity volume 1, pages 315–331 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Insects are crucial for the functioning of ecosystems and might be facing declines globally, although data are biased away from the tropics where insect diversity and abundance are highest. In this Review, we assess the current status of insect populations in the tropics and discuss the prevailing threats to tropical insect biodiversity. Burgeoning human populations, increasing urbanization and land-use changes are leading to habitat loss and fragmentation, as well as increased pollution, including both light and pesticides. Insects on tropical islands are particularly sensitive to invasive species, which have already led to the extinction of multiple unique endemic species. Climate change further threatens insect populations across the tropics and might be disrupting crucial weather cycles such as El Niño and La Niña, which are important drivers of phenology and synchrony at these latitudes. Tropical insect declines might alter fundamental ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration and herbivory. Disruption of food webs could lead to increased outbreaks of pests and of insect-vectored diseases in humans and livestock, affecting human health and reducing food security. Methodological advances — including artificial intelligence and computer vision, remote sensing and meta-barcoding — are facilitating taxonomy, speeding up identification of diverse samples and improving the monitoring of tropical insect biodiversity to guide future conservation efforts.

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Fig. 1: Geographic distribution of publicly accessible datasets for tracking tropical insect communities through time.
Fig. 2: The global distribution of threats to tropical insects.
Fig. 3: Ecological effects of declining insect diversity and abundance.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the RGC Collaborative Research Fund (C7048-22GF) and the NSFC National Excellent Young Scientist Fund (AR215206). F.M.F. and K.D.d.S. are funded by the UKRI FLF (MR/X032949/1]) and CNPq (311550/2023-1, 443860/2024-6, 441257/2023-2 and 444350/2024-1). O.T.L. is funded by NERC NE/X000117/1. The authors thank P. Eggleton for comments on an early version of this manuscript and V. Amaral for assistance with Fig. 3.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Michael J. W. Boyle, Timothy C. Bonebrake, Michel A. K. Dongmo, Martha J. Ledger, Adam C. Sharp & Louise A. Ashton

  2. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, Brazil

    Karina Dias da Silva & Filipe Machado França

  3. School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Filipe Machado França

  4. EcoHealth Alliance, New York, NY, USA

    Nichar Gregory

  5. School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland, Australia

    Roger L. Kitching & Nigel E. Stork

  6. Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Owen T. Lewis

  7. IUCN SSC Atlantic Island Invertebrate Specialist Group, Salisbury, UK

    Adam C. Sharp

  8. Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London, UK

    Joseph Williamson

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M.J.W.B. and L.A.A. conceptualized and led the development of the manuscript. All authors contributed equally to the writing and editing.

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Boyle, M.J.W., Bonebrake, T.C., Dias da Silva, K. et al. Causes and consequences of insect decline in tropical forests. Nat. Rev. Biodivers. 1, 315–331 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44358-025-00038-9

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