Module 11 Flashcards
Flying insects measured in Germany
The insects were measured over 26 years and the amount caught greatly decreased over the time of the study
Bumblebee populations have greatly
Decreased and it is an important pollinator
Ants and termites
Facilitate movement of organic and inorganic materials in and out of the ground
Enriches soil
Insect decomposers promote the
nutrient cycle
Disturbance of insect populations greatly affect
Predator populations
Study shows that bird population decreases with decreasing insect population
Spotted flycatcher bird
Population decreased by 90 percent because of insect population decrease
Insects can be used for
Biomonitoring
they can represent overall health of an ecosystem and respond quickly to environmental change
Biomonitoring
Monitoring ecosystem using indicator species
Butterflies can serve as
Indicator species because they are sensitive to changes and easily spotted
Biomonitoring may help us
Understand natural processes that affect ecosystems
Can also help use identify human impacts
Largest cause of insect loss
Habitat loss and fragmentation
Deforestation over the past 56 years is the size of
Russia
Grasslands have been lost to
Livestock production and overgrazing
Overgrazing makes
dessert like habitats
Aquatic ecosystem being affected by humans
Construction of canals and reservoirs influence groundwater saturation in a region
This affects soil characteristics that affects plants and therefore insects that need those plants
Dams often affects
Aquatic insects negatively
Habitat fragmentation
The process by which continuous habitats are fragmented by human intervention
Inbreeding depression
Inbreeding happens so much that the health of the population is greatly impacted
Common when habitat fragmentation has occurred
Habitat fragmentation occurs mostly from
Agricultural devleopment and urbanization
Highly modified landscapes come from the need of
Agriculture
Agriculture leads to
local extinction of insects
agriculture Situation is more dire for insects that have
low dispersal abilities like small bodied insects
special habitat requirements like aquatic insects
Forest tent caterpillar
Fragmented forests
Parasitoid wasps that infect forest tent caterpillar will not enter fragmented forests, so the caterpillars become an outbreak when left unchecked and clear forests
Fragmentation can also occur from
Formation of survey or seismic lines
removing long strips of forests
Urbanization
The process of which people go from rural areas to urban areas
As urbanization increases
Footprint of people increase and habitats are lost
Roads fragment
Natural habitats
Vehicle emissions and other human emissions
Affect insect habitat and wellbeing
Heat from urban environments leads to
Higher than normal temp in habitats
Negatively affects insects because they are ectotherms and respond to heat
Diurnal insects (day insects) exposed to light at night by urbanization leads to them
Have their circadian rhythms interrupted
Interrupted rest cycles which lead to altered reproductive cycles
Nocturnal insects can be fooled into
Movement towards an unnatural light source that moves them away from their habitat, exposing them to predators
Light pollution is a form of
habitat loss
Dung beetles use
light from the stars at night to know where to move their dung
When light pollution is present
dung beetles
Move sporadically and ended up carrying dung back to source
Temp beyond the range of survival
Slows growth
Warmer temp promotes
Faster development towards sexual maturity
Temperature-size rule
Ectothermic animals that grow under warm conditions grow faster and reach sexual maturity faster but are smaller adults than this that grow under cooler environments
Body size of beetles in Canada have
Decreased due to temp
Effects of smaller body size
Potentially smaller eggs and smaller offspring less equipped to exploit their environment
Leads to damage in the food web because smaller insects are lower in quality of food for predators
Climate change greatly affects parasitoids because they have
Poor dispersal
Narrow habitats
Have intimate interactions with their hosts
If parasitoid host interactions are disturbed
Biological control of pests can be disturbed
Ice bugs and climate change
Ice bugs have died due to increasing temp and degradation of habitats because of it
Tropical insect climate change effects
As the temperature increases, the upper threshold may be reached, leading to a decline in these species
Temperate insect climate change effects
Overall temp and insect density is lower
with climate change, these insects may reach the optimal temp range and populations may increase
This leads to increased metabolic activity which may lead to increase crop destruction
Insect predicted response to climate change
Insects will move towards the poles are to different habitats with a better temp range
For every 1 degree in temp change insect populations move
170m up in elevation
or 150km poleward in latitude
Populations that have range shifts in response to climate change may be a problem because
If not enough insects reach the leading edge of a population expansion, there may be too few insects to locate and mate
Populations may be isolated from each other leading to inbreeding depression
Short generation times allow insects to
adapt to climate change quickly
Winter moth
Remain active in falls and winter
Eggs overwinter inside European oak
Climate change has led to asynchrony between the host and the larvae emerging
Winter moths combat this with either a different host or a delay in egg hatching
Invasive species
Organisms that have established populations in a new range
Invasive species outcompete native organisms by
Outcompeting to exploiting resources
Lack of natural predators
Plants lack
Adaptations to deal with invasive species
People transport
Invasive species through global food trade and moving wood etc
A common invasive species is
Ants
Spotted lantern fly causes a lot of
Economic loss due to the large amount of plants it eats
They have a high fecundity and can be transported by people
Spotted wing fruit fly
Female flies have ovipositors that place eggs in fruit and can easily spoil food
no natural of these invasive specie
Hemlock woolly adelgid
Feeds on hemlock trees and causes them to die
Reduces habitat quality of birds that need high canopies
Lack of high canopy trees means that low canopy trees can be established and different bird species can emerge
Parasitoid fly as an invasive species
Brought in as a biological control with gypsy moth but ended up attacking other flies
Overexploitation by humans
People may collect or harvest insects for reasons like being kept as pets or medicine or food which may lead to them becoming invasive or endangered
Poor harvesting processes
Harvesting them as insects leading to a lack of adults
Overharvesting is not as much of a factor as
Other factors like deforestation
Steps of biodiversity conservation
Prioritization
Inventory and monitoring
Mangement
Prioritization
Picking and prioritizing what species to protect
Allows us to determine what goals are needed to protect the species and to promote biodiversity overall
Irreplaceability
The conservation value of a specific target
Can be used to determine priorities of action for the species
First application of irreplaceability
Emphasizes conservation efforts in geographical regions most likely to be severely impacted by climate and landscape changes
More biodiversity is likely to be wiped out in these easily impacted areas
Emphasizing a conservation location may be imbalanced because
Temperate habitats like the USA or Canada have a lot more knowledge and research conducted than tropical areas
Irreplaceability is higher for
rare species with limited geographic region occupied
Because monarch butterflies migrate across all of North America they are great
Indicator species
Recent studies have not been good for overwintering monarchs
High density of insect does not mean that they are
Endangered
Knowledge of a species location allowed conservation managers to
associate the species with environmental features
Inventory at risk populations
Detailed mapping and quantifications of a specie sin question
It is more difficult to quantify insects because they are
small
Monitoring
tracking insect response to factors and populations
Regular monitoring is often done by simple
biodiversity surveys
ie. Trapping and counting insects
biodiversity surveys can be
time consuming
It is difficult to monitor insects because
They are measured as adults and do not have long adults stages so the opportunity to study them is small
Citizen science example
Butterfly counts done by butterfly watchers to help monitor populations
Mission monarch
Members of the public count monarch butterflies in milkweeds and report it to the website to help monitoring
Citizen science cons
Citizens may provide timing bias because they are more likely to view in the day time so no nocturnal species may be found
data may be skewed by location accessibility
Insect identification can be different and may be misidentified
Insects may have polymorphism
Sexual dimorphism
Juvenile insects looking much different from adults
Polymorphism
Same species having multiple distinguishing morphs
Sexual dimorphism
Males and females looking different
Insect management requires not just insect conservation but
Habitat conservation
Parks and reserves
Areas of minimal interference that have high sustainability
Parks in urban areas
Lessens the impact of human interference
Conservation is more tailored towards
Species people love
so not insects
most commonly conserved insects
Butterflies
an important tool to promote the conservation of insects is
public outreach like having a butterfly house
Flagship species
when a specific species is used in conservation efforts to evoke public effort
Umbrella effect
Helping one species in a habitat helps multiple
