Complex and nonlinear climate‐driven changes in freshwater insect communities over 42 years | Biodiversité | Scoop.it

The ongoing biodiversity crisis becomes evident in the widely observed decline in abundance and diversity of species, profound changes in community structure and shifts in the species' phenology. Insects are among the most affected groups, with documented decreases in abundance up to 76% in the last 25–30 years in some terrestrial ecosystems. Identifying the underlying drivers is a major obstacle as most ecosystems are affected by multiple stressors simultaneously and in situ measurements of environmental variables are often missing. In our study, we investigated a headwater stream belonging to the most common stream type in Germany located in a nature reserve with no major anthropogenic impact except climate change.