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Stronger El Niños reduce tropical forest arthropod diversity and function

Nature volume 645, pages 946–951 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

There is ongoing debate about the vulnerability of arthropods to climate change1,2. Long-term impacts of climate change on arthropod communities could manifest through short-term weather patterns3. Arthropods in the tropics are hyper-diverse4,5 and contribute many crucial ecosystem functions6,7, but are comparatively less studied than in temperate regions1,8,9. Tropical forest arthropods and the functions that they provide may be vulnerable to intensified El Niño events under climate change10,11,12. Here we perform time-series analysis of data from primary tropical forests, which reveal long-term declines in arthropod diversity and function that were linked to El Niño occurrence. In the Americas, species losses correlated with El Niño sensitivity, and abundant species fluctuated according to feeding traits and level of ecological specialization. Parallel declines in butterflies in Southeast Asia suggested that impacts spanned continents. Predicted arthropod diversity changes correlated with observed rates of invertebrate-mediated decomposition and leaf herbivory, which were oscillating and crashing, respectively, across the tropics. Our analyses suggest that an intensified El Niño immediately threatens tropical forest arthropods and the ecosystem functions that they provide. The broader consequences remain unknown, but such widespread changes could fundamentally alter tropical forest ecosystems13. Long-term monitoring of arthropod diversity and forest functioning across the tropics is paramount, as is researching the potential mechanisms that underly this novel threat.

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Fig. 1: Predicted changes in generalized arthropod diversity across forests in the tropical Americas.
Fig. 2: Comparison of predicted Lepidoptera diversity changes between the tropical Americas and Asia, and between the superfamily Papilionoidea and other superfamilies.
Fig. 3: Predicted changes in forest invertebrate functions over recent decades.
Fig. 4: Weighted Spearman’s correlation coefficients between predicted diversity changes in arthropod orders and observed annual mean rates of invertebrate contribution to decomposition and leaf herbivory in the tropical Americas.

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Data availability

All compiled datasets associated with this analysis are available from Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14863366 (ref. 82).

Code availability

All code associated with this analysis is available from Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15428848 (ref. 83).

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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). Araneae icon created in BioRender. Sharp, A. (2025) https://BioRender.com/590mota. Blattodea icon created in BioRender. Sharp, A. (2025) https://BioRender.com/agtujv6. Coleoptera icon created in BioRender. Sharp, A. (2025) https://BioRender.com/wq2wj8t. Diptera icon created in BioRender. Sharp, A. (2025) https://BioRender.com/o1ivkt7. Hemiptera icon created in BioRender. Sharp, A. (2025) https://BioRender.com/9k89sl6. Hymenoptera icon created in BioRender. Sharp, A. (2025) https://BioRender.com/y5wejdo. Lepidoptera (Papilioinoidea) icon created in BioRender. Sharp, A. (2025) https://BioRender.com/khfl547. Lepidoptera (non-Papilioinoidea) icon created in BioRender. Sharp, A. (2025) https://BioRender.com/cnwyo1o.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Adam C. Sharp, Michael J. W. Boyle, Timothy C. Bonebrake, Yirong Guo, Xiaoyi Zeng & Louise A. Ashton

  2. Atlantic Island Invertebrate Specialist Group, IUCN Species Survival Commission, Salisbury, UK

    Adam C. Sharp

  3. School of Environmental and Natural Sciences, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland, Australia

    Roger L. Kitching & Nigel E. Stork

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Contributions

A.C.S. conceived, designed and conducted the analysis and wrote the first draft of this article. M.J.W.B. formulated hypotheses on El Niño impacts and sourced arthropod diversity datasets. Y.G. conducted the literature search and compiled data on leaf herbivory. X.Z. conducted the literature search and compiled data on invertebrate contribution to decomposition. T.C.B., R.L.K. and N.E.S. contributed knowledge to the text. L.A.A. secured funding for and led the wider project to which this analysis belongs. All authors contributed to writing of the Article.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Michael J. W. Boyle or Louise A. Ashton.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 Summaries of Generalized Additive Mixed Models (GAMMs) predicting arthropod diversity changes through time in the tropical Americas.

a. Parametric coefficient estimates and smooth fits. Estimates are on the log-link scale. The values in brackets indicate the Tweedie power parameter, p. The time scale adjustment is an additive component to the long-term gradient that controlled for inconsistent temporal scale between time series datasets – some time series reported taxon occurrences at monthly intervals and other time series at yearly intervals. The additional adjustment parameter allowed more flexible model fitting to yearly-scale time series, and it is omitted at the later prediction stage. The Oceanic Niño Index, ONI, smooth described short-term fluctuations in diversity attributable to climate oscillations. Richness’s of Araneae, Coleoptera, Hemiptera and Lepidoptera were predicted to be in significant long-term decline. Inverse Simpson’s diversity indices of Araneae, Blattodea and Coleoptera were predicted to be in significant long-decline, while Inverse Simpson’s diversity index of Diptera was predicted to increase significantly. b. Visualizations of ONI smooth functions. Translucent bands represent 95% confidence intervals, derived from standard errors. The ONI explained a significant amount of short-term temporal variation in richness’s of Coleoptera, Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera. The ONI also explained a significant amount of short-term temporal variation in the Inverse Simpson’s diversity index of Blattodea, Hemiptera and Lepidoptera.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Summaries of GAMMs predicting Lepidoptera diversity changes through time in the tropical Americas and Asia.

a. Parametric coefficient estimates and smooth fits. Estimates are on the log-link scale. As in the models of order-level diversity change, the time scale adjustment controls for differences in the temporal scale of reported taxon occurrences between time series. Adjustment was unnecessary for non-Papilionoidea superfamilies (moths) in the Americas as all utilized datasets were of monthly temporal intervals. Also as before, the ONI smooth described short-term fluctuations in diversity attributable to climate oscillations. The Richness’s of Papilionoidea (butterflies) in the Americas and Asia and other Lepidoptera superfamilies in the Americas were predicted to be in significant long-term decline. Inverse Simpson’s diversity indices for both Papilionoidea and non-Papilionoidea Lepidoptera in the Americas were similarly predicted to be in significant long-term decline, but not the Papilionoidea in Asia. b. Visualizations of ONI smooth functions. Translucent bands represent 95% confidence intervals, derived from standard errors. The Richness’s of Papilionoidea (butterflies) and other Lepidoptera superfamilies (moths) in the Americas declined significantly during El Niño compared with La Niña, as did the Inverse Simpson’s index of non-Papilionoidea. There was no significant equivalent effect in Lepidoptera time series from Asia, although data from that region were lesser in temporal coverage and did not coincide with strong El Niño events.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Order-level relationships between predicted arthropod El Niño responses and long-term diversity changes.

El Niño Response describes the short-term change in diversity (standard deviations, Z) from moderate La Niña conditions (ONI = −1.1) to strong El Niño conditions (ONI = 1.9). Horizontal and vertical lines represent 95% confidence intervals and are derived from bootstrapped (n = 10,000) GAMM predictions.

Extended Data Table 1 Model selection of invertebrate decomposition and herbivory models via Akaike Information Criterion (AIC)
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 Summaries of parametric coefficient estimates and smooth fits for GAMMs predicting invertebrate contributions to decomposition and herbivory rate through time
Full size table
Extended Data Table 3 Summaries of Pearson’s correlations between annual mean invertebrate contribution to decomposition rates in the Americas, Asia and Africa
Full size table
Extended Data Table 4 Summaries of weighted Spearman’s correlations between predicted arthropod diversity and observed mean annual invertebrate contribution to decomposition rate in the tropical Americas
Full size table
Extended Data Table 5 Summaries of weighted Pearson’s correlations between observed mean annual leaf herbivory rate and time (years after the year 2000)
Full size table
Extended Data Table 6 Summaries of weighted Spearman’s rank correlations between predicted arthropod diversity and observed mean annual leaf herbivory rate in the tropical Americas
Full size table

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Sharp, A.C., Boyle, M.J.W., Bonebrake, T.C. et al. Stronger El Niños reduce tropical forest arthropod diversity and function. Nature 645, 946–951 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09351-x

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