Insights into pollinator trends through monitoring, modelling, and prediction

A recent seminar led by Julia Aledo of the Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC) highlights advances from the Antenna Project in understanding pollinator trends. The seminar, titled “Uncertainty in pollinator trends: insights from monitoring, modelling, and prediction,” draws on field experience and showcases results from ANTENNA's Work Package 3.

Pollinators play a crucial role in sustaining ecosystem services, yet tracking and predicting their population dynamics remains a complex challenge. The presentation covered the three approaches they undertake to address these gaps. 

1. monitoring: testing traditional and novel approaches for pollinator collection and identification

2. modelling: the available time series reveal that short, highly variable and temporally autocorrelated datasets risk their interpretation of biodiversity change

3. predicting: introducing a reservoir computing algorithm able to predict accurately to the near-term.

All these advances are able to provide pathways towards a more reliable and comprehensive insect biodiversity monitoring.

Watch the seminar here.

The findings are part of WP3, which focuses on integrative monitoring and modelling. The work in the WP aims to develop robust metrics of insect decline, enable iterative ecological forecasting, and build a framework for a comprehensive pollinator forecasting and early warning tool.