Abstract
Insects play important roles in the maintenance of ecosystem functioning and the provision of livelihoods for millions of people. However, compared with terrestrial vertebrates and angiosperms, such as the giant panda, crested ibis, and the metasequoia, insect conservation has not attracted enough attention, and a basic understanding of the geographical biodiversity patterns for major components of insects in China is lacking. Herein, we investigated the geographical distribution of insect biodiversity across multiple dimensions (taxonomic, genetic, and phylogenetic diversity) based on the spatial distribution and molecular DNA sequencing data of insects. Our analysis included 18 orders, 360 families, 5,275 genera, and 14,115 species of insects. The results revealed that Southwestern and Southeastern China harbored higher insect biodiversity and numerous older lineages, representing a museum, whereas regions located in Northwestern China harbored lower insect biodiversity and younger lineages, serving as an evolutionary cradle. We also observed that mean annual temperature and precipitation had significantly positive effects, whereas altitude had significantly negative effects on insect biodiversity in most cases. Moreover, cultivated vegetation harbored the highest insect taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity, and needleleaf and broadleaf mixed forests harbored the highest insect genetic diversity. These results indicated that human activities may positively contribute to insect spatial diversity on a regional scale. Our study fills a knowledge gap in insect spatial diversity in China. These findings could help guide national-level conservation plans and the post-2020 biodiversity conservation framework.
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Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31821001, 32030014), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB31000000), the Youth Innovation Promotion Association, CAS (2022080) and the Young Elite Scientist Sponsorship Program by CAST (YESS20200196). Thanks for the insect distribution data support from the National Animal Collection Resource Center.
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The author(s) declare that they have no conflict of Interest. All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and the supplementary materials. The code reported in this paper has been deposited in the GitHub database (https://github.com/fanhuizhong).
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Fan, H., Liu, T., Chen, Y. et al. Geographical patterns and determinants of insect biodiversity in China. Sci. China Life Sci. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-023-2483-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-023-2483-0