arising from: J. Müller et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06402-z (2023).After a long-term study signalled a 76% drop in insect biomass in less than three decades in German-protected nature areas1, insect declines are now assigned to a multitude of anthropogenic factors2,3. A recent reanalysis4 of the insect biomass data of a previous study1 has suggested, however, that the declines are well explained by time-lagged weather anomalies, whereas new data collected by another study4 suggest that the declining trend has reversed in recent years (after 2016). Here we render these conclusions as invalid, on the basis of a critical review of methods and a reanalysis of the results. With evidence for insect biomass declining further, we argue for more standardized research to examine future trends and rigorous statistics to uncover the relative importance of contributing factors.
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Fig. 1: Flying insect biomass from four studies using Malaise traps in Germany.Fig. 2: Lack of weather anomaly effects.
Data availability
Data of the NRW as well as habitat classification of the validation data and R code can be found on Zenodo16 (https://zenodo.org/records/14258659). All other datasets can be retrieved from the respective sources (refs. 1,4,5).
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Hallmann, C. et al. Data accompanying “Weather anomalies cannot explain insect decline”. Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14258659 (2024).Download referencesAcknowledgementsThe Project DINA was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and handled by the VDI Project Management Agency (grant number FKZ 01LC1901). The North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) monitoring was funded by the State Agency for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection (LANUV) and the Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Transport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (MUNV). Conceptual framework and development of methodologies of the Entomological Society Krefel was funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV), handled by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN; grant number FKZ 3516850400). We thank J. Müller and colleagues for constructive discussion.Author informationAuthors and AffiliationsRadboud Institute for Biological and Environmental Sciences, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The NetherlandsCaspar A. Hallmann, Eelke Jongejans, Henk Siepel & Hans de KroonEntomological Society Krefeld (EVK), Krefeld, GermanyCaspar A. Hallmann, Thomas Hörren & Martin SorgNIOO-KNAW, Animal Ecology, Wageningen, The NetherlandsEelke JongejansFaculty of Biology, Aquatic Ecology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, GermanyThomas HörrenNature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU), Berlin, GermanyRoland Mühlethaler & Gerlind U. C. LehmannEvolutionary Ecology, Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin, GermanyGerlind U. C. LehmannAuthorsCaspar A. HallmannView author publicationsYou can also search for this author in
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PubMed Google ScholarContributionsC.A.H., M.S., E.J., T.H., H.S. and H.d.K. conceived the idea of the article. M.S. and T.H. obtained additional information on trap locations. C.A.H. performed the statistical analysis. T.H., G.U.C.L. and R.M. provided additional validation data. All authors wrote the manuscript.Corresponding authorCorrespondence to
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Additional informationPublisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.Extended data figures and tablesExtended Data Table 1 Sampling-habitat overviewFull size tableExtended Data Table 2 Decomposition of weather and habitat effects on the average (log) daily biomass from the validation data of4Full size tableSupplementary informationSupplementary InformationThis file contains Supplementary Notes, Supplementary Methods, and Supplementary References.Reporting SummaryRights and permissionsReprints and permissionsAbout this articleCite this articleHallmann, C.A., Jongejans, E., Hörren, T. et al. Weather anomalies cannot explain insect decline.
Nature (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08528-0Download citationReceived: 13 November 2023Accepted: 13 December 2024Published: 12 March 2025DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08528-0Share this articleAnyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:Get shareable linkSorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.Copy to clipboard
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