Anticipating where are unknown aquatic insects in Europe to improve biodiversity conservation

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14310%2F23%3A00130350" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14310/23:00130350 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Anticipating where are unknown aquatic insects in Europe to improve biodiversity conservation

Original language description

The present biodiversity loss requires a better understanding of the biodiversity patterns of species, for it is difficult to protect what it is not known. A large proportion of species still remain to be described, which makes setting conservation practices difficult, especially for insects, one of the most diverse taxonomic groups. In this study, the distribution of recently described species of aquatic insects was explored in Europe (including western Russia, Cyprus and Turkey) to (1) figure out the potential location of unknown biodiversity hotspots, and (2) define the variables that can anticipate the distribution of said unknown biodiversity. Georeferenced data of new descriptions of aquatic insects between 2000 and 2020 was compiled, and the HydroBASIN delimitation was used as a spatial unit. The richness of the recently described species was modelled using a Zero-inflated Poisson regression approach. A total of 966 new species have been described in the last 20 years, the majority of which belonged to Diptera (398 sp.), Trichoptera (362 sp.) and Coleoptera (105 sp.). Roughly 74% of the new species have been described in the Mediterranean Basin. Results show that a mixture of environmental and socioeconomic factors explained the distribution of recently described species of aquatic insects, although the percentage of protected area was not a significant variable. The results highlight the need to effectively conserve freshwater ecosystems, especially in areas with higher number of descriptions, where future monitoring efforts are necessary to ensure freshwater biodiversity is adequately known and managed in the context of climate change.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

O - Miscellaneous

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10617 - Marine biology, freshwater biology, limnology

Project

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Continuities

S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach<br>I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2023

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů