Recently, multiple news articles (Carrington, 2019b; Hunt, 2019; Jarvis, 2018) reported on an impending “Insect Apocalypse”, where “40% of the 1 million known species of insect are facing extinction”. These sensational articles sparked public concern and awareness on the importance of insects, and provided ideas and resources on what can be done to help improve insect populations. However, those reported figures were mere extrapolations from a two localised studies in Germany (Hallmann, et al., 2017) and Puerto Rico (Lister & Garcia, 2018). Furthermore, we do not know the exact number of insect species worldwide, and still require data from more locations before making such statements (Milius, 2020).
Although the ‘insect apocalypse’ narrative is not fully accurate, we have seen increasing interests in insect conservation and a large increase in academic papers regarding insect declines in the past years. In general, reported insect declines, albeit localised, are largely due to anthropogenic factors, of which main threats are land use change, increasing pesticides use, industrial pollution and more recently, climate change. These factors have impacted insect populations by reducing suitable habitats, disrupting their navigation and lowering their viability (Eggleton, 2020). The decline of insect populations would result in the loss of important ecosystem services that would negatively impact crop production, food security and ecosystem stability.
To build support for insect conservation, Saunders et al. (2020) stresses the need for fundamental and applied research, especially targeting knowledge gaps in population dynamics, monitoring techniques, impact of human activities, and developing cost-effective genetic tools of species identification. In addition, communication narratives should not be exaggerated, which could undermine the publics’ trust in scientists and research. Instead, communications should be science-based and accurate, and would help garner both public and political support for insect conservation (Saunders et al., 2020).