Giving Compass' Take:

• Bugs facilitate pollination, decompose waste, support food chains, and much more. Without them, whole ecosystems could collapse. That's why their disappearances are alarming entomologists, as this Global Citizen post explains.

• What measures can be made to stop this decline, especially when it comes to fighting climate change? How can we preserve such essential organisms through global policy work?

• Here's more about the importance of sustaining soil ecosystems. 

All around the world, insect populations are plummeting, according to the Washington Post, and entomologists — insect experts — are panicking.

The latest report documenting this decline, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focuses on insects in Puerto Rico’s rainforests.

The lead researcher, Bradford Lister of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has been tracking insects for decades with his team through a sophisticated system of nets and traps. During this time, they noticed a growing decline in various populations.

In 2013, insect catch rates in the nets dropped to an eighth of what they were in 1977 and catch rates in the traps fell 60-fold.

Lister told the Post that climate change is the most likely culprit because average peak temperatures in the rainforests have risen by 4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past four decades and the insects being studied are sensitive to climate.

Read the full article on how climate change is impacting our bugs by Joe McCarthy at Global Citizen.