As spring returns to Norway, researchers are setting up this year’s insect traps across the country. Using metabarcoding to monitor insect populations, Norway is the first country in Europe to implement this methodology in a Government led program. The same methodology could be applied across Europe for cost-effective monitoring of the neglected majority of insect species.
Trapping season starts early this year. Photo: Sondre Dahle/NINA
Insects are essential for ecosystem functioning and human well-being. They contribute to pollination, nutrient cycling, food webs, and natural pest control, and also serve as bioindicators, providing critical insights into environmental change.
In recent decades the global decline of insects have been evident, although long-term time-series have been lacking in Norway. As a response, NINA experts developed a national monitoring program for insects on behalf of the Norwegian Government.
Trapping insects by the millions
Initiated in Norway in 2020, the monitoring program focuses on insects in forests and agricultural landscapes, with a long-term aim of reaching 250 localities in each of these habitat types.
“The monitoring provides new and valuable knowledge on the distribution of insect biodiversity and tracks trends across a wide range of insect groups. While the program does not specifically target rare species, it also contributes to improved knowledge on red-listed species and species previously unrecorded in Norway,” says Jens Åström, project lead and insect researcher at NINA.
From April to October, when insect activity is at its peak, researchers collect thousands of species, and millions of individuals using Malaise traps. These are tent-like structures that intercept flying insects, guiding them upward into a collecting bottle filled with ethanol. As manual sorting and identification is virtually impossible, the researchers use metabarcoding, which allows for efficient identification of large numbers of species, saving time, cost and taxonomic effort.
“The strength of this methodology lies in its ability to efficiently process a large number of samples containing vast numbers of individuals from many species. This has previously been impossible to do,” says Åström.
Since this type of metabarcoding does not destroy the specimens and all samples are preserved, researchers can revisit and verify findings as necessary.
Towards an EU-wide monitoring program of neglected insects
Although similar methodology is used also in Germany and Sweden, Norway is currently the only European country with a government-funded national insect monitoring program using metabarcoding. Together with partners throughout Europe, researchers now aim at testing the methodology in other European countries with support from Biodiversa+, a co-funded partnership under Horizon Europe. The method can vastly widen the scope of insect monitoring, from a relatively small number of well-known pollinator species, which is the current focus within the EU, to encompassing much of the neglected majority of our insect species. It is therefore especially suitable in countries lacking traditional taxonomic expertise and data.
“The goal is to implement the methodology across Europe, providing a solid and comparable knowledge-base for more informed conservation efforts and policy development in the region”, Åström concludes.