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Here we build on the manifesto ‘World Scientists Warning to Humanity, issued by the Alliance of World Scientists. As a group of conservation biologists deeply concerned about the decline of insect populations, we here review what we know about the drivers of insect extinctions, their consequences, and how extinctions can negatively impact humanity. We are causing insect extinctions by driving habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation, use of polluting and harmful substances, the spread of invasive species, global climate change, direct overexploitation, and co-extinction of species dependent on other species. With insect extinctions, we lose much more than species. We lose abundance and biomass of insects, diversity across space and time with consequent homogenization, large parts of the tree of life, unique ecological functions and traits, and fundamental parts of extensive networks of biotic interactions. Such losses lead to the decline of key ecosystem services on which humanity depends. From pollination and decomposition, to being resources for new medicines, habitat quality indication and many others, insects provide essential and irreplaceable services. We appeal for urgent action to close key knowledge gaps and curb insect extinctions. An investment in research programs that generate local, regional and global strategies that counter this trend is essential. Solutions are available and implementable, but urgent action is needed now to match our intentions. (VLID)4800017

The present study aimed to understand how assembly mechanisms drive the global and regional patterns of fish assemblage composition in estuaries. The approach used applied a bootstrapped hierarchical cluster analysis based on pairwise beta-dissimilarities (Beta sim) of fish assemblages between 393 estuaries to define biogeographical units. A set of large and small-scale filters were then used to test their influence on beta-dissimilarity patterns, through distance-based linear models (DISTLM). The global pattern obtained (i.e. seven major biogeographical units) was explained by large-scale filters related with geographic barriers (e.g. Isthmus of Panama) and temperature/current filters, in addition to their evolutionary history. Meanwhile, species composition within each biogeographical unit was also determined by large-scale filters, with only a minor influence of a few small-scale filters (i.e. tide range, estuary type and estuary area). Overall, the global pattern of fish composition in estuaries was mainly driven by dispersal limitation assembly mechanism (i.e. evolutionary history and geographical barriers/filters). In contrast with known species richness patterns, results support a weak influence of environmental filtering on species composition at regional scales, which was also driven by dispersal limitation. Results suggest a hierarchical influence of environmental filtering mechanism that acts at increasingly finer scales.

Here we build on the manifesto ‘World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity, issued by the Alliance of World Scientists. As a group of conservation biologists deeply concerned about the decline of insect populations, we here review what we know about the drivers of insect extinctions, their consequences, and how extinctions can negatively impact humanity. We are causing insect extinctions by driving habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation, use of polluting and harmful substances, the spread of invasive species, global climate change, direct overexploitation, and co-extinction of species dependent on other species. With insect extinctions, we lose much more than species. We lose abundance and biomass of insects, diversity across space and time with consequent homogenization, large parts of the tree of life, unique ecological functions and traits, and fundamental parts of extensive networks of biotic interactions. Such losses lead to the decline of key ecosystem services on which humanity depends. From pollination and decomposition, to being resources for new medicines, habitat quality indication and many others, insects provide essential and irreplaceable services. We appeal for urgent action to close key knowledge gaps and curb insect extinctions. An investment in research programs that generate local, regional and global strategies that counter this trend is essential. Solutions are available and implementable, but urgent action is needed now to match our intentions.