Join a working group

Within the research themes of the RCN, there are many working groups tackling different challenges needed to understand the status of insects globally and work to reverse insect declines:

• data aggregation and monitoring
• quantitative analysis and methods development
• causes of declines
• consequences of declines
• solutions
• network management

To learn more about the different working groups or to join a working group, please contact the working group co-chairs for the topic(s) that align with your interests and expertise; RCN participants are encouraged to be involved in more than one working group.

Start a new working group

To propose a new working group within one of the RCN themes, please contact the RCN Program Manager, Eliza Grames, at egrames@binghamton.edu. In your email, please include a rationale and explain how the working group will help to understand the status of insects globally, what types of activities the working group would engage in, and some ideas for types of products the group would produce (e.g. white papers, symposia, papers, etc.). You may also suggest potential working group leaders and members who might be interested.

Partner with the RCN

If you are part of a research network, organization, or other group and there is likely substantial overlap in interests of your members and RCN participants (and vice versa), please get in touch. For example, collaboration networks working on some of the causes (e.g. effects of climate change on biodiversity) or consequences of decline (e.g. loss of some insects from pollinator networks), or groups focused on developing evidence-based policy for conservation, or any other pertinent topics and related efforts. We can figure out ways to form partnerships that are mutually beneficial (especially to the insects!); please contact the Principal Investigator, David Wagner, at david.wagner@uconn.edu to discuss further.

Participate in upcoming events

The RCN hosts a monthly webinar series on topics related to insect biodiversity loss and insect conservation. Announcements will be sent out to the contact list a few weeks in advance with details on how to join the webinar. We also have a virtual Annual Meeting hosted on Gather.town. The dates for 2025 are TBD but will likely be in late January.

Contribute data

If you have data that could be useful for understanding insect population trends and trajectories that you want the RCN to have access to or know about, please email the Program Manager, Eliza Grames, at egrames@binghamton.edu. We highly encourage researchers to also submit long-term insect datasets to the Global Insect Threat Response Synthesis (GLiTRS) project as well.