Abstract:

Background & Aim: Insects are the most diverse group in the animal kingdom and are indispensable components of both terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. The intensification of human activities has led to an unprecedented rate of global biodiversity loss, signaling the onset of the sixth mass extinction. This crisis is, to a large extent, an insect crisis, as insect populations are declining at a rate approximately twice that of vertebrates. Consequently, the importance of monitoring insect diversity has become increasingly evident. To overcome the limitations of traditional insect biodiversity monitoring, which relies heavily on active sampling methods, the application of passive monitoring approaches has emerged as a major trend in insect diversity research since the beginning of the 21st century. However, monitoring insect diversity using a single sampling device often results in insufficient sampling and fails to capture the true structure of insect communities. How to integrate multiple passive monitoring devices across broad spatial scales, while ensuring both sampling efficiency and standardized, comparable data, has become a central scientific challenge in assessing global insect biodiversity trends. 

Strategies: Against this background, Professor Ming Bai from the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with Professor Alfried Vogler from Imperial College London and the Natural History Museum, UK, and numerous international collaborators, jointly proposed the “SITE-100” international large-scale research initiative. This program aims to establish 100 standardized sites worldwide, following principles of biodiversity sampling. By constructing standardized plots and employing combinations of multiple passive sampling devices, “SITE-100” quantitatively collects insect samples spanning vertical strata from the ground surface to the mid-canopy. Through this integrated sampling framework, the project investigates global insect diversity patterns and their underlying mechanisms of decline across multiple dimensions, including species, morphology, phylogeny, and genetic diversity. 

Summary: Since its inception in 2016, the “SITE-100” initiative has established 16 sampling sites in China and, in collaboration with international partners, more than 30 additional sites across Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, South America, and Australia. This paper reviews the research outcomes achieved at the “SITE-100” Chinese sites in insect biodiversity monitoring, as well as the newly developed technologies and methodological innovations. It provides a detailed introduction to the standardized workflows implemented at “SITE-100” sites and highlights the characteristics and advantages of each new technique and method. By doing so, this review aims to support the advancement of forest biodiversity monitoring in China and to promote the development of standardized technical frameworks for assessing spatiotemporal patterns of insect diversity and for intelligent insect monitoring.

Key words: biodiversity, passive collection, new monitoring equipment, community phylogenetics, artificial intelligence