Moth biomass has fluctuated over 50 years in Britain but lacks a clear trend

Macgregor, Callum J.; Williams, Jonathan H.; Bell, James R.; Thomas, Chris D.

Abstract

Steep insect biomass declines ('insectageddon') have been widely reported, despite a lack of continuously collected biomass data from replicated long-term monitoring sites. Such severe declines are not supported by the world’s longest running insect population database: annual moth biomass estimates from British fixed monitoring sites revealed substantial between-year biomass change but no difference in mean biomass between the first (1967–1976) and last decades (2008–2017) of monitoring. High between-year variability and multi-year periodicity in biomass emphasize the need for long-term data to detect trends and identify their causes robustly.

Citation

Macgregor, C. J., Williams, J. H., Bell, J. R., & Thomas, C. D. (2019). Moth biomass has fluctuated over 50 years in Britain but lacks a clear trend. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 3, 1645–1649. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-1028-6

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Nov 11, 2019
• Deposit Date: Feb 6, 2024
• Journal: Nature Ecology & Evolution
• Publisher: Nature Research
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 3
• Pages: 1645–1649
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-1028-6
• Publisher URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-1028-6