Urbanization is a pressing challenge for earth's human because it is transforming and fragmenting not only natural environments, but also rural lands. Yet, the consequences of rural land-use change on insect populations that depend on these habitats remain largely unclear. We used a 17-year data set to investigate the dynamics of three dominant native farmland moths and its driving forces across the largest megaurban region of China. Total moth abundance declined by about 80%, which was strongly associated with loss and fragmentation of croplands during rapid urbanization. Our findings indicate that urbanization, through loss of traditional agricultural lands, can be a further threat to insect populations. It is therefore really critical to monitor and understand the agrobiodiversity dynamics in rapidly urbanizing regions, which are currently found in many developing countries worldwide.
Keywords: agricultural intensification; cropland loss; earth’s human; global change; habitat destruction; human society development; insect decline; land-use change; urban agroecosystems; urbanization
Wan, Nian-Feng and Dainese, Matteo and Zhu, Feng and Xiao, Liu-Bin and Zhang, Wei and Ma, Jun and Wang, Wei-Min and Wang, Mao-Tao and Zhu, Jian-Wen and Wang, Jin-Yan and Cheng, Wei and Zhou, Chen and Chen, Shi-Jian and Wei, Qin and Jiang, Yao-Pei and Wu, Xiang-Wen and Yi, Hong-Juan and Gan, Hui-Hua and Shen, Hui-Mei and Ji, Xiang-Yun and Lu, Yi and Zhou, Zi-Ji and Qiu, Shi-Yun and Chen, Wei-Yu and Zhang, Jian-Jun and Cai, You-Ming and Jiang, Jie-Xian and Li, Bo, Decline of Dominant Native Farmland Moths in Rapidly Urbanized Landscapes. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3821968 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3821968
This version of the paper has not been formally peer reviewed.
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