ACTIAS | Global patterns of insect diversity, distribution and evolutionary distinctness
This document presents the main results of the FRB-CESAB ACTIAS group “Global patterns of insect diversity, distribution and evolutionary distinctness – What can we learn from two of the best-documented families of moths?“.
The ACTIAS project stemmed from the observation that large-scale studies of spatio-temporal patterns of terrestrial biodiversity are biased toward vertebrates and plants, leaving insects largely untouched at that scale. Yet, insects are key organisms in ecosystems and their species and populations are severely impacted by global changes.
Large-scale biodiversity studies have built on the outstanding development in the recent past of infrastructures, methods and tools to manage and analyze very large datasets. “Big Data” analyses stimulated invaluable advances in the field of macroecology, biogeography and evolutionary biology, and have fueled better informed conservation policies in a world that we unfortunately now understand as entering what has been termed its “sixth extinction” period.
The Actias project aimed at:
- erecting a set of two families of moths – Saturniidae and Sphingidae – as the first models for large-scale diversity studies in insects,
- carrying out the first large-scale investigation of macroecological patterns and of the processes governing them,
- and ultimately at informing the fate of insect diversity and help design adapted conservation strategies.
