Associate Director Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique Cambridge, Massachusetts
The decline in the biomass, abundance, and species richness of insects in temperate zones, the result of multiple and largely human-driven factors, is undeniable and well-documented thanks to nearly two centuries of data-collecting. But for the great majority of tropical areas, the baseline and long-term datasets on insect abundance and richness simply do not exist. At the same time, there is both anecdotal evidence and a well-founded expectation - based on the staggering rate of the loss of natural habitats in the tropics - that the rate of insect disappearance there may be as high or higher than that in the temperate zones. Consequently, entomologists documenting and describing tropical insects, often based on specimens collected in habitats that no longer exist, are akin to gravestone makers who ensure that at least the names of those lost species will be known. Limited resources, bureaucratic and legal barriers, and the sheer speed of the habitat loss accelerates the process of Centinelan Extinction – the disappearance of species before their existence is known. Only a dramatic and concerted effort of academics, conservation practitioners and, importantly, politicians, can slow down this process and help avert the impending ecological fallout from the loss one of the most important elements of the global biodiversity.
