Date of Award
Fall 11-21-2025
Document Type
Honors Thesis
Department/Major
Biology
First Advisor
Jeff Wesner
Second Advisor
Jake Kerby
Third Advisor
Mark Dixon
Keywords
Insect decline, insect population, insect apocalypse, NEON, aquatic macroinvertebrate
Subject Categories
Biodiversity | Biology | Life Sciences
Abstract
There is a common idea that there is an “insect apocalypse”, that insect populations are on a drastic decline. To test this hypothesis we took data collected by the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) from 2015 to 2023 and analyzed it to create a time series model depicting the population of aquatic macroinvertebrates at 34 sites across North America (Appendix 1). NEON is an NSF funded, continental-scale observation facility designed to collect long-term open-access ecological data to better understand the complexities of Earth's ecosystems and how they are changing. From this model, we defined the slope of the change in population over time to determine whether there was a significant pattern of decline in aquatic macroinvertebrate populations. Of the 34 sites, about half fell into the decreasing category with the other half into the increasing category. Nearly all of the sites had slopes between -0.49 and 0.27, indicating an average change in insect density (no/m2) between about -68% and about 86% per year. Average yearly change of insect density lies between about 28% decrease and 35% increase (95% CI). This alludes to there not being a massive insect decline crisis across North America, instead insect population change appears to be idiosyncratic. This contradicts the common idea of an insect apocalypse, which provides some hope for the future of many ecosystems.
Recommended Citation
Bauder, Analiese Kate, "Insect Apocalypse? Population Patterns of Aquatic Macroinvertebrates Across North America" (2025). Honors Thesis. 401.
https://red.library.usd.edu/honors-thesis/401