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July 5th, 2025
Version: 1
University of Kansas
ecology
biorxiv

Citizen science suggests decreased diversity of insects in Mexico, a megadiverse country.

Soberon, J. L.Open in Google Scholar

An analysis of iNaturalist data on several taxonomic groups of insects in Mexico is presented. I found evidence of a decreasing trend in diversity of species per year, for four families of butterflies, the bumblebees and the dragon and damselflies. I performed the anlayses on several of the Potential Vegetation types of J. Rzedowsky, and explore the role of deforestation and pesticide use on the trends I found. I discuss the challenges of using unsystematic data to estimate trends and provide several hypotheses to explain them.

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