ABSTRACT
Earth’s high-latitude and temperate forest regions harbour significant insect diversity, and have massive ecological and economic values, both as carbon sinks and as sources of timber. Temperate forests, both in the northern and southern hemispheres, and boreal forests are floristically distinct, but suffer parallel pressures from climate change, exploitation for timber and invasions by alien species, processes that threaten forest integrity and the well-being of many endemic insects in these far-separated parts of the world. A few species have become serious pests of production forestry, but most are poorly documented, and their patterns of endemism, local diversity, and distributions are unclear. Harmonising forest insect conservation with anthropogenic pressures is critical for sustaining the numerous interactions in which insects participate. Some of these interactions are immensely intricate. The disappearance of a single tree species in a natural forest can lead to accompanied insect species extinctions. Many of these interactions, especially in southern temperate forests, are undescribed. Here, current challenges and opportunities are synthesised for insect conservation in boreal and temperate forests.
