Webinars



2025


Chowdhury, B. The Unnatural History of Pesticide-Resistant Insects During the Boll Weevil Eradication Campaign. Status of Insects RCN Webinar Series. May 29, 2025.

Bashira Chowdhury will be sharing on her work using historical archives and museum specimens to piece together drivers of change among beneficial insects during the Boll Weevil eradication program in the US south. Bashira will give a talk and then we’ll have a discussion where we chat about getting at drivers and disturbances of insect population dynamics when our records are a little more heterogeneous.

Perry, K. Building insect trait databases to scale predictions of insect-environmental interactions. Status of Insects RCN Webinar Series. May 16, 2025.

Dr Perry, lead of the insect traits working group (and my personal favorite Coleopterist) will be to update us on the work the traits group is doing to compile and use a vast database of insect traits to use in support of lots of different investigations at scale.

Black, S. Insect decline: perspectives from the Xerces Society. Status of Insects RCN Webinar Series. April 25, 2025.

The Xerces Society uses a multipronged approach to invertebrate conservation. We work on applied research and crowdsource community science data. Using this information, we educate the public and provide technical assistance to partners and help them successfully conserve, restore and manage species and habitat. This information also informs advocacy and policy efforts to protect species and their habitat.

Scott will discuss how Xerces uses the following strategies and how all people listening can get involved:

  • Using applied research and community science to improve understanding of the biology, distribution, threats, and habitat needs of invertebrates.
  • Building a movement of diverse people who take action for invertebrate conservation.
  • Advancing policy solutions and methods that protect invertebrates and their habitats.
  • Catalyze the protection, restoration, and management of habitats in natural and human-altered environments to ensure long-term resilience of invertebrate populations.
Ware, J., A. Eichert, A. Kirkaldy, and G. De Knijf. Aquatic insect biodiversity and insect declines. Status of Insects RCN Webinar Series. April 1, 2025.

Panelists: Anna Eichert, American Museum of Natural History; Abigail Kirkaldy, Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa; Syd Cannings, COSEWIC, Yukon, Canada; Geert De Knijf, Research Institute for Nature and Forest in Belgium.

Moderated by Jessica Ware, American Museum of Natural History

Espelosin, D. Behavior Change Fundamentals. Status of Insects RCN Webinar Series. January 24, 2025.

Dulce Espelosin is a Mexican conservation professional, currently residing in the US. She holds a degree in Communication and Media Sciences and is a certified Professional Facilitator. In 2020, Dulce received the Distinguished Service Award from the Society for Conservation Biology (Latin America & Caribbean section) for her pioneering work in behavior change and community outreach.

Since 2008, Dulce has developed and led impactful conservation strategies in 15+ countries, specializing in behavior change and social marketing. She began her career in 2003 at La Primavera Protected Area in Mexico and then spent over 12 years at Rare Conservation, where she designed training programs for remote communities worldwide.


2024


Halsch, C. Meta-synthesis of drivers of insect decline. Status of Insects RCN Webinar Series. October 21, 2024.

Dr. Chris Halsch presents an ongoing meta-synthesis of hypothesized drivers of insect decline. Over the past seven years, there have been 175 reviews, meta-analyses, commentaries, and perspective papers published on causes of insect decline. This meta-synthesis unites those hypotheses into a single conceptual framework. From the unified framework, we have identified priorities for meta-analyses on the effects of drivers that have been hypothesized but not quantified. As part of the webinar, we will discuss these potential meta-analyses and plan for follow-up workshops and Working Groups to tackle them.

Guzman, M. Impact of pesticide use on wild bee distributions. Status of Insects RCN Webinar Series. September 26, 2024.

There are huge efforts -- by large institutions, community science groups, and individual research labs -- to collect and curate biodiversity data at unprecedented scales. In this talk, Dr. Melissa Guzman highlights recent developments in the occupancy-detection modeling framework that allow us to use data from historical collections to infer changes in species ranges. Dr. Guzman then presents new evidence that pesticide use has substantially altered the distribution of North American bees in the last 30 years.

Weiss, F. and Linde A. Long‐term Drought Triggers Severe Declines in Carabid Beetles in a Temperate Forest. Status of Insects RCN Webinar Series. May 2, 2024.

Evidence for widespread declines in arthropods is growing and climate change is one of the suspected drivers. Recent droughts in Europe were unprecedented in the previous centuries and we are only beginning to understand the impacts on ecosystems. We analysed a 24-year dataset of carabid beetles from a temperate forest area in northeast Germany and investigated linear and non-linear trends in carabid abundance, biomass, diversity and species traits. We were especially interested if and how these were linked to droughts at different temporal scales using the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI). We found significant linear declines in abundance and biomass with annual rates of −3.1% (0.95 CI [−5.3, −1]) and –4.9% (0.95 CI [−9.4, −1.6]), respectively. Non-linear trends were closely related to the SPEI when considering the climatic water balance of the previous six years and showed severe declines between 2015 and 2022 (−71% abundance, 0.95 CI [−84, −61] / −89% biomass, 0.95 CI [−97, −59]). However, there remained a significant annual background-decline of −2.1% (0.95 CI [−5.7, −0.2]) and −3.1% (0.95 CI [−6.5, −0.1]), respectively, which occurred independently of drought. We observed negative trends in standardized carabid diversity metrics and a shift in species assemblage that were less directly linked to droughts. Declining and drought-sensitive species tended to be larger predators with low dispersal abilities. This study is among the very first to investigate the impacts of the current unprecedented drought on forest insects in central Europe. Our findings add to the concerning amount of evidence for widespread declines in arthropods while pointing towards weather anomalies and climate change as one important driver.

Hochkirch, A. Filling the insect gaps in conservation policy. Status of Insects RCN Webinar Series. April 5, 2024.

While, nearly all mammal, bird, amphibian and reptile species have been assessed for the IUCN Red List, insects are still underrepresented. We need to establish more Specialist Groups within the Species Survival Commission (SSC) for insects. Axel Hochkirch, chair of the IUCN SSC Invertebrate Conservation Committee and co-chair of the IUCN SSC Grasshopper Specialist Group, will provide an overview of the work of IUCN SSC Specialist Groups and how to establish new groups, followed by a discussion on how we can fill the remaining gaps in the network.


2023


Sanchez Herrera, M., Pinto, Â.P., Maharaj, G., Stoll, E., Azeezat, A., and Ware, J. Colonialism and insect study. Status of Insects RCN Webinar Series. October 26, 2023.

How does it study of insects differ when working at an institution in the Global South? How has the history of colonialism and present day inequities shaped our research? Join us for this global conversation!

Owens, A. and B. Seymoure. Light pollution as a driver of insect declines. Status of Insects RCN Webinar Series. August 3, 2023.

Light pollution is an often overlooked bringer of the insect apocalypse. Light pollution interferes with the development, dispersal, foraging, and reproduction of diverse insect taxa, including nocturnal pollinators and charismatic flagship species such as fireflies. Unlike other anthropogenic threats, light pollution can be cheaply, easily, and instantly eliminated — yet recent innovations in lighting technology have only made the problem worse. We highlight several case studies in beetles and moths revealing the negative consequences of lighting technologies on insect populations. We then conclude by highlighting a few simple things we can all do to help protect the night sky, fireflies, and the foundations of ecosystems worldwide.

Harvey, J. Habitat management to enhance arthropod adaptation to climate change and climatic extremes. Status of Insects RCN Webinar Series. May 25, 2023.
Bahlai, C. A bug and a feature: using models from open tech to catalyze RCN Working Groups. Status of Insects RCN Webinar Series. March 9, 2023.

In this webinar, we’re going to adapt some best-practices from Mozilla’s Working Open Workshop series to our project. Mainly, we’re going to discuss some structures Working Group organizers can build to help attract and retain new and diverse collaborators to their working groups, support contributors, and unite people under a set of common goals.

Grames, E. Aggregation and synthesis of existing data to assess insect biodiversity change. Status of Insects RCN Webinar Series. February 9, 2023.

An overview of what we do and don't know about data that can be used to quantify insect trends and disentangle drivers and the ongoing EntoGEM systematic map project.


2022


Wagner, D. Insect Decline and the Status of Insects RCN. Status of Insects RCN Webinar Series. November 30, 2022.

An overview of insect decline, review of recent literature and new studies, and introduction of the goals and structure of the RCN.