To us insectometers, it is clear that insect decline in our Costa Rican tropics is real, so let’s be kind to the survivors

Abstract

We have been field observers of tropical insects on four continents and, since 1978, intense observers of caterpillars, their parasites, and their associates in the 1,260 km 2 of dry, cloud, and rain forests of Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) in northwestern Costa Rica. ACG’s natural ecosystem restoration began with its national park designation in 1971. As human biomonitors, or “insectometers,” we see that ACG’s insect species richness and density have gradually declined since the late 1970s, and more intensely since about 2005. The overarching perturbation is climate change. It has caused increasing ambient temperatures for all ecosystems; more erratic seasonal cues; reduced, erratic, and asynchronous rainfall; heated air masses sliding up the volcanoes and burning off the cloud forest; and dwindling biodiversity in all ACG terrestrial ecosystems. What then is the next step as climate change descends on ACG’s many small-scale successes in sustainable biodevelopment? Be kind to the survivors by stimulating and facilitating their owner societies to value them as legitimate members of a green sustainable nation. Encourage national bioliteracy, BioAlfa.