Towards global insect biomonitoring with frugal methods

Abstract

None of the global targets for protecting nature are currently met, although humanity is critically dependent on biodiversity. A significant issue is the lack of data for most biodiverse regions of the planet where the use of frugal methods for biomonitoring would be particularly important because the available funding for monitoring is insufficient, especially in low-income countries. We here discuss how three approaches to insect biomonitoring (computer vision, lidar, DNA sequences) could be made more frugal and urge that all biomonitoring techniques should be evaluated for global suitability before becoming the default in high-income countries. This requires that techniques popular in high-income countries should undergo a phase of ‘innovation through simplification’ before they are implemented more broadly. We predict that techniques that acquire raw data at low cost and are suitable for analysis with AI (e.g. images, lidar-signals) will be particularly suitable for global biomonitoring, while techniques that rely heavily on patented technologies may be less promising (e.g. DNA sequences). We conclude the opinion piece by pointing out that the widespread use of AI for data analysis will require a global strategy for providing the necessary computational resources and training. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Towards a toolkit for global insect biodiversity monitoring’.

Sharing insect data through GBIF: novel monitoring methods, opportunities and standards

“…Novel monitoring technologies may contribute to an increased geographical coverage of underrepresented regions, such as the tropics [ 32 ]; and it can be expected that monitoring and detection technologies will find their way to the lower-capacity parts of the world sooner than corresponding entomological expertise [ 33 ]. However, integrated approaches are needed to properly describe and understand [ 34 ] the many new species that will be revealed by an increased global coverage of insect diversity.…”

Towards a toolkit for global insect biodiversity monitoring

“…Two perspective pieces deal with this issue. Sanchez et al [ 65 ] emphasize the needs of biomonitoring using modern technologies in the Global South, while Brydegaard et al [ 66 ] present some frugal solutions to meet these needs. As the lack of biodiversity data often results from lack of resources, the sharing of knowledge and devices and a move away from centralized, resource-intensive platforms towards distributed, frugal solutions could contribute to local capacity building and alleviate some of the global inequalities [ 66 ].…”

“Dark taxonomy”: a new protocol for overcoming the taxonomic impediments for dark taxa and broadening the taxon base for biodiversity assessment

“…This means that applying a technique like "dark taxonomy" to a few complete Malaise trap samples could simultaneously yield biodiversity baseline data for many numerically dominant families and hundreds of species simultaneously. This is realistic, because barcoding is now so easy and cheap (Srivathsan et al 2021) that dark taxonomy is frugal and thus suitable for biodiverse countries with limited science funding (Brydegaard et al 2024). PCR costs can be as low as 0.05 USD per specimen, and sequencing with Illumina's NovaSeq costs only 0.01-0.02 USD /barcode (Srivathsan et al 2021).…”

“…The use of 3 rd generation sequencing technologies raises the sequencing cost for DNA barcodes, but it still means that the consumable cost for barcoding the ~3,000 specimens in our study costs USD 150 (Illumina) to USD 375 (ONT). Specimen handling costs are also dropping with the use of DIY microscopes (Wührl et al 2024) and robots for sample sorting (see Wührl et al 2022). Carrying out taxonomic revisions for dark taxa will inevitably remain challenging but "dark taxonomy" can help with simultaneously addressing taxonomic impediments and the need for biodiversity baseline data.…”