Evidence of climate change effects on insect diversity

Abstract

Abstract Socioeconomic advances caused profound changes in human lives during the last centuries. Currently, billions of people are living and thriving on Earth, but such prosperity comes with a cost. Biodiversity loss has reached alarming levels, and insects are especially vulnerable to human impacts and climate change. This chapter provides the state of knowledge on human-driven impacts on insect diversity, and how climate change boosts such impacts. Insect diversity has been devastated by habitat change, over-exploitation of resources, pesticide use and pollution and invasive species. Additionally, biodiversity loss of organisms such as plants and vertebrates represents an additional blow that hastens the impact on insect diversity and ecological interactions. Insects are the most abundant group of animals on the planet, and their loss risks many ecosystem functions (e.g., pollination), causing cascade effects that threaten our survival. Thus, a global and coordinated effort should be made to preserve and recover insect diversity.